Whether it's just the latest in a passing trend or not, PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds is certainly rocking the house, securing the record for the most played non-Valve game in Steam's history.
Shortly after amassing over 5 million unit sales last month before clocking up another million, the survival shooter will exit July with a record peak playerbase of 481,291 - 10,000 more than Fallout 4 managed during its November 2015 launch.
Announcing the feat through their official Twitter account, they included an image of Top 10 games to grace the Peak Players list over the course of Steam's lifespan. Of course, sitting far above it still is Counter Strike: Global Offensive and Dota 2 which both boosted their records within a month apart of each other early last year with Dota 2 specifically closing in on 1.3 million concurrent users - still far above PUBG's <500k.
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But the real thing to notice here is how many of the games to achieve cult status on the platform over the last few years - RUST, ARK, Conan Exiles, DayZ etc aren't part of the list. PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds is the first to make a dent in the entries as a pure survival sim. Likely related to how it doesn't expect players to stick around day after day protecting their position, Battlegrounds merely asks they play a round and then decide to go for another. Perhaps it being a homage to the cult-classic Battle Royale movie helped it gain traction.
Either way, the PlayerUnknown team think it's down to how they listen to the player feedback that's contributed to its continued success. With a console release imminant, the only way is up. But without sounding too cliche, whatever goes up must come down. How long will it last?
