Last Epoch devs offer gift as servers are swamped with players at launch

destructoid.com:

Last Epoch left early access on February 21, resulting in a sudden influx of players checking out the full release. How many players? On the day Last Epoch officially launched, SteamDB recorded a peak of over 152,000 concurrent players. One day later, the figure has grown to more than 176,000 players, and it’s not even a weekend.

With so many gamers clamoring to play online, the Diablo-like’s servers have been stretched to their limits. I tried to play co-op with a friend on launch day, and while we were able to play together, we definitely felt the servers straining under the load. It took a couple of tries to form a party. The actual gameplay felt great, but transitioning to new areas was often a crapshoot. Scene transitions would sometimes take minutes, if not time out completely.

This appears to have been a common experience. Eleventh Hour Games has a real time update thread where they are documenting their efforts to address the issues. They’ve implemented some bandwidth increases and appear to be fighting valiantly to keep up with demand.

In the meantime, Eleventh Hour Games has announced a free cosmetic gift to thank players for their support and patience. Everyone who owns Last Epoch while the server issues are ongoing will receive an Autumnal Wrap back back-slot item. They haven’t sent these out yet, but players should receive them automatically when they do.

For now, if you want to play Last Epoch online, your best bet is to try and play during non-peak hours. I was able to have a moderately successful co-op experience when I revisited the game later in the day.

Alternatively, you can wait a few days until the situation stabilizes for Last Epoch. Either player numbers will settle after the launch weekend, or Eleventh Hour Games will come up with a solution to sustain this many online players.

It should be noted that there is a fully offline mode in Last Epoch. You can enable this on Steam by right clicking the title in your library, selecting Properties,