The one-two punch of a Graveyard Keeper 2 announcement and a free giveaway for the original, has seen Graveyard Keeper’s player count explode on Steam.
Developer Lazy Bear Games last week announced it was creating a follow-up to its hilariously inaccurate medieval cemetery management sim, Graveyard Keeper, and to mark the occasion, it decided to make the original game free to download for anyone on Steam, PlayStation, and Xbox until today.
Better yet, it’s yours to keep after that. No strings, just lots and lots of ethically dubious cemetery management.
It seems this tandem of announcements has done wonders for introducing the game to a wider audience, as the player count on Steam saw a massive uptick.
Graveyard Keeper Raises the Undead and Its Player Count
When Graveyard Keeper went free on Thursday, April 9, 2026, just 2,107 people were playing the absurd sim. By the end of that day, that number had more than tripled. Friday saw it hit 23,465 players; Saturday jumped again, reaching a high of 36,974; and on Sunday, the game hit an all-time peak player count of 46,305.
It’s a pretty smart move. Graveyard Keeper was first released in 2018, and in the fast-moving world of video game releases, that’s like going back to Victorian times, so what better way to promote a long-gestating sequel and remind people of what the original brought to the table for the grand price of free?
On the subject of the sequel, Graveyard Keeper 2 will have players once again cynically profiting from the running of a cemetery by cutting every possible corner.
You’ll manage the town as well as the graveyard, and build up an undead army to fight off a zombie apocalypse.
You can wishlist Graveyard Keeper 2 now.
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