PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds, the intense battle royal style shooter from developer and publisher Bluehole, may still only be in it’s early access stages but that hasn’t stopped the game from becoming one of the most-played games on Steam.
In a tweet from the game’s official Twitter account, developers celebrated the game reaching a peak of 382, 561 concurrent players. This puts PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds fourth on the list of highest peak concurrent players on Steam, beating out fan-favorite Grand Theft Auto V.
In PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds players parachute into an eight-by-eight kilometer map with no weapons or gear; from there it is survival of the fittest as players struggle to be the last one standing. Tactics as well as skill play an integral role in surviving as every few minutes the map will shrink, making it nearly impossible to avoid other players for long. This means finding better weapons and protective gear is a necessary evil, but as most of these items are found in structures scattered across the map the likelihood of running into other players at such places is pretty high. Luckily, you can team up with friends to increase your chances that at least one of you will survive until the end.
The game was released back in March through Steam’s Early Access Program but quickly rose in popularity. According to Steam Spy the game has currently sold over four million copies. While it is difficult to pinpoint why the game has been so successful, many speculate that the fast-paced, DayZ style game play keeps gamers engaged beyond the normally repetitive style of other online games like Overwatch and Call of Duty.
PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds is set to release by the end of this year on PC with timed exclusivity on Xbox One shortly afterward but will continue to be available for play through the Early Access Program until then.