The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt's return to notoriety has been well-reported. With the launch of The Witcher TV show on Netflix, both new players and old are flocking back to the RPG. But while The Witcher 3's newfound surge of popularity makes a lot of sense, few likely could have predicted just how much success it'd find. New numbers from Steam show that The Witcher 3 has set a new record for itself. As of this weekend, it's had more concurrent players than it even had at launch.
As of Sunday, December 29, The Witcher 3 peaked at 94,651 concurrent players. This makes it the 7th most-played game on Steam, just below Destiny 2 and above Team Fortress 2. But more importantly, it makes it higher than even its launch concurrent players. During its launch month, Steam says The Witcher 3 peaked at 92,268. The closest its come otherwise is during June 2016, after the launch of the huge Blood and Wine expansion, when it reached just under 54,000.
This kind of resurgence is unprecedented. For a game to surge in popularity is one thing, but to overcome its total players at launch is difficult to believe. Much of the credit has to be given to The Witcher TV show's launch on Netflix, to be sure. But it's likely the TV show's launch in tandem with one other fact that's led these numbers. That fact being that Steam is currently holding its winter sales event. As part of the sales event, The Witcher 3 - Game of the Year Edition is discounted to just $14.99.
Other factors have likely contributed, like the fact that fans have been able to purchase The Witcher 3 for over four years now, so there's an established number of Steam users who are able to open the game as they please. It may even continue to grow going into 2020.
There is one thing worth mentioning that does limit how great The Witcher 3's surge of players is. The number only measures players on Steam and only compares to players on Steam at launch. It's unclear if the same surge is being seen on PlayStation or Xbox. It's also unclear if many PC The Witcher 3 players at launch chose to buy the game on GOG.com instead of Steam. The Witcher 3's new record is exclusive to the Steam platform and may not be true beyond it. That doesn't mean that it isn't a significant achievement as it is.
The Witcher 3 is available now on PC, PS4, and Xbox One.