Sons of the Forest is proving to be quite successful indeed, according to its performance on Steam, where the early access version of the survival title has managed to eke out a player count victory against the blockbuster Hogwarts Legacy. A sequel to 2014's The Forest, the new title follows in its predecessor's stead but with improvements across the board, making it the next big thing in the survival game genre.

After Sons of the Forest launched on Steam via the Early Access program, it was to be expected that players would flock to it due to its uniquely horrific nature, engaging gameplay mechanics, and the series' pedigree. Yet, it would appear that few anticipated just how massively successful the game would end up being, with it slamming one record after another in quick succession.

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Specifically, while Hogwarts Legacy broke records across the board, Sons of the Forest is now enjoying a greater number of concurrent players on Steam. As of February 24, The Forest sequel counts almost 170,000 concurrent players, while there are currently about 140,000 people playing Hogwarts Legacy. Those numbers will of course fluctuate throughout the day and the latter still has a bigger 24-hour peak, but the success that Sons of the Forest is now seeing is nothing short of remarkable, especially considering the fact that the game isn't finished just yet.

sons of the forest hogwarts legacy steam player count

What's even more interesting and noteworthy is that Steam crashed when Sons of the Forest launched on February 23, and while there's no official word on what caused the outage, it is curious that these two events coincided. Thankfully, the outage didn't last too long, and players have been able to enjoy the early access survival title in the hours since.

It was perhaps to be expected that the sequel to the survival horror game would be such a big deal. Very recently, it was revealed that Sons of the Forest got onto more wishlists than even Starfield had, which was an immense success in and of itself. Taking that into consideration, it does seem that the Sons of the Forest may end up being one of 2023's most noteworthy releases, especially if the game launches from Steam Early Access in the coming months.

2023 has been good for horror game fans so far, it seems. With Dead Space and Sons of the Forest already out and Resident Evil 4 and Silent Hill 2 well on their way, there are good things ahead for genre veterans. And Sons of the Forest, specifically, has a bit of an edge over most of these titles as it's a cooperative multiplayer survival experience, possibly keeping players busy for long stretches of time if its early access period pans out.

Sons of the Forest is available now on PC via Steam Early Access.

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Source: Steam