It looks like Returnal is off to a slow start on PC
Returnal appears to be one of Sony‘s weakest PC launches so far.
The roguelike shooter has so far achieved under 7,000 concurrent players on Steam during its first weekend, according to SteamDB.
For comparison, the only game in Sony’s recent PC catalog to have performed worse is Sackboy: A Big Adventure which managed just 610 peak, concurrent players.
Sony’s other PC ports have performed far better, with God of War leading the pack at around 74,000 concurrents, Marvel’s Spider-Man at around 66,000, Horizon Zero Dawn at around 56,000, and Days Gone at around 28,000.
It’s worth noting that while Returnal debuted to a strong critical reception and was lauded with industry awards in the year following its release, it’s a significantly smaller IP than that of God of War or Spider-Man.
Returnal was released for PC earlier this week and is currently the 165th most-played game on Steam in the last 24 hours.
However, even some of PlayStation‘s larger IPs have seemingly failed to make a large splash on PC so far, as Uncharted: The Legacy of Thieves Collection managed a similarly low 10,851 concurrent player count during its debut weekend, despite being a far larger IP than Returnal.
In June 2021, Sony claimed the game has sold around 560,000 copies on PlayStation 5 during the first two months, which was within its expectations.
Following months of speculation, a PC port of Returnal was finally announced in December 2022.
Housemarque’s next game will be a new intellectual property rather than a sequel, although the title will incorporate ideas and narrative systems originally planned for Returnal.
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