Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance Sees Surge In Players Thanks To Memes

thegamer.com:

Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance is a bit of an oddball even for a notoriously odd franchise like Metal Gear. Instead of a stealth action game, Konami partnered with PlatinumGames to create a hack-and-slash action game where Raiden the cyborg ninja literally hacks enemies to pieces in order to regain his health. Besides that, the game's story, soundtrack, and boss fights are all bonkers affairs that are as entertaining as they are memorable.

Although Revengeance received generally good reviews when it was released back in 2013, it didn’t entirely translate into sales. The game’s PC release also didn’t help, with just 11,000 concurrent players when Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance released on Steam in January 2014.

Related: Metal Gear Solid Being Unavailable On Consoles Is An Insult To Our History

But an odd thing seems to be happening. After years of concurrent player counts in the low hundreds, Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance has seen its player count rise back into the thousands for the first time since its initial release. PlayTrackerNet noted that Revengeance’s concurrent Steam user count has soared 1000% since January 2022, and achievement activity across all platforms is at its highest since 2018.

Players are finally finding Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance after years of mediocrity, and according to PlayTrackerNet, it’s all thanks to the Jetstream Sam Thinking meme. Jetstream Sam, in case you haven’t played Revengeance, is a cyborg Samurai and one of the main antagonists in the game. Like most of Revengeance’s characters, Sam’s peculiar style makes him unforgettable, which is likely why someone uploaded a gif of Jetstream Sam rubbing his chin back in 2018. Only recently did that gif become a viral meme, which is getting