Steam Game Gets Unexpected Player Count Spike 11 Years After Release

gamerant.com:

Dead Island: Riptide has been seeing a major uptick in player count on Steam as of late. The 11-year-old Dead Island spin-off has received a new surge in players, who have begun to breathe some new life into Dead Island: Riptide.

The first Dead Island game in 2011 brought forth some epic zombie survival gameplay. After the game's success, Dead Island 2 was announced in 2014 at E3, but it was unclear at the time that it would take nearly 10 years for the sequel to finally become reality. However, despite the long wait for Dead Island 2, a spin-off was released in the form of Dead Island: Riptide. Taking place on another island in the Banoi archipelago, Dead Island: Riptide begins where the first game left off, pitting the game's heroes against even more zombie hoards.

In a surprising turn of events, Dead Island: Riptide seems to be having a new surge in players on Steam. Originally released back in 2013, it's now been over a decade since the game first launched, but that hasn't stopped players from checking out what the zombie survival title has to offer. Since the game's release, there have been plenty of mods to improve Dead Island: Riptide, but one of the biggest reasons for the increase in players is probably the excitement surrounding Dead Island 2's upcoming Steam release.

The long-awaited sequel to Dead Island finally launched last year, but the original release did not include Steam. Starting off as an Epic Games Store exclusive on PC, Dead Island 2 finally hits Steam on April 22, and It's highly likely that the excitement for this sequel is drawing some players towards Dead Island: Riptide. As reported by PCGamesN, the concurrent player count for Dead Island: Riptide on April 14 was around 300 to 500 players, but it quickly shot up to around 2,000 people and has continued to hover around this number.

Back in February, Steam did a special promotion that made Dead Island: Riptide free for a limited time. This resulted in the concurrent player count