August 20, 2024 @ 6am PT: Black Myth Wukong has climbed well past 2.1 million concurrent players on Steam, beating the all-time peak for Palworld while PUBG’s 3.3 million is all that’s left for it to top.
Within hours of launch, Black Myth Wukong has the biggest Steam single-player concurrents ever, and the most players of any game on Valve’s platform. Game Science’s action RPG is currently beating out the ever-present Counter-Strike 2, with well over one million players jumping on it within an hour of launch. It’s unclear if Black Myth Wukong can beat 2024 megahit Palworld, with the player count plateauing over the last few hours, but it’s certainly getting close.
If my job has taught me anything, it’s to expect the unexpected. 2024 has been the year of the surprise hit, and while I could tell Black Myth Wukong was going to be big, I didn’t think it would instantly break records. With a steady playercount of over 1.4 million on Steam alone mere hours after launch, the boss-heavy action RPG is yet another 2024 superhit.
To put the millions of players into perspective, Valve’s Counter-Strike 2 (and precursor CSGO) has comfortably sat at the top of the player charts since time immemorial – but now Black Myth Wukong is topping it. Multiplayer stalwarts like PUBG, Naraka Bladepoint, GTA 5, and Dota 2 all regularly rake in hundreds of thousands of players, and Black Myth Wukong is beating them. As a single-player game, I have no doubt that Black Myth Wukong will drop off while these online games stick around, but that doesn’t make this rise any less impressive.
In fact, Black Myth Wukong even eclipsed Cyberpunk 2077’s Steam playercount. CD Projekt Red’s latest RPG was the first single-player adventure to reach over one million concurrents and held that record for four years – not even Elden Ring could join it. Now though, not only has Black Myth Wukong beaten these single-player titans, but it’s also the biggest game on Steam.
According to GameDiscoverCo founder Simon Carless, the current estimate for Black Myth Wukong’s Steam country split leans heavily on China. GameDiscoverCo says 88.1% of players are in China, 3% in the US, 1.6% in Hong Kong, and 1% in Japan.
Considering Black Myth Wukong’s setting is based on the Chinese story Journey to the West and protagonist Sun Wukong, the sheer popularity of the game in that region isn’t entirely surprising. That said, just a 3% estimate for the US is quite a shock considering how much we’ve been hearing about the game on this side of the globe.
Our very own Black Myth Wukong review from Nat scored the game 8/10, praising the colossal bosses and gorgeous visuals, while finding the sluggish camera and restrictive exploration big hold-ups.
Otherwise, if you’re diving into the soulslike game right now, make sure you catch up with all the best Black Myth Wukong weapons, our full list of the unlockable Black Myth Wukong abilities, and every Black Myth Wukong armor set to help you take down those bosses.
Hardware-wise, we’d also recommend taking our system requirements PC benchmark test over on PCGameBenchmark to answer the question… Can I run Black Myth Wukong?
You can also follow us on Google News for daily PC games news, reviews, and guides, or grab our PCGN deals tracker to net yourself some bargains.
