It's no secret “PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds” is on a tear. Even in its Early Access form, the game crossed an important (if symbolic) milestone. On the morning of August 27 , the battle royale shooter outdid “Dota 2” as the game with the most simultaneous players on Steam, with 877,844 fighting at once.
It’s a mighty achievement because PUBG would seem up for many disadvantages. First is that Steam is Valve’s platform and “Dota 2” is its biggest game. Secondly, PUBG costs $30 and is still on Early Access, while “Dota 2” is free to play and is already a finished game.
It happened! PUBG just had more concurrent users than Dota 2 on Steam! pic.twitter.com/Ljw3kO2hcT
— Steam Spy (@Steam_Spy) August 27, 2017
‘PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds’: on a roll
The game is still gaining hundreds of thousands of concurrent players monthly and even weekly. It has even surpassed “Grand Theft Auto V” and “CS: GO,” making it the second most game on Steam for a while.
Over at Twitch, PUBG became one of the most-watched games earlier this month. 16.9 million total hours of PUBG were watched on the streaming platform, Gameloco reports, beating “League of Legends” by nearly two million hours.
Taking the whole world by storm, the game is pretty simple: a hundred people parachute onto a giant map, find weapons then proceed to kill one another.
And yes, the last man standing wins. With a myriad of streamers and YouTubers getting a piece of the action, it’s no wonder the game has grown to its current peak of popularity.
More good news, developer Bluehole Studio recently announced that it had sold eight million copies, and it just finished the Gamescom PUBG Invitational eSports tournament in Cologne, Germany, which likely helped the company reached peak concurrent players.
Xbox One to release ‘PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds’
Microsoft is now helping Bluehole bring “Player unknown's Battlegrounds” to Xbox One, and said the game is coming "exclusively to Xbox One in the Xbox Game Preview program" later this year. With various gaming ecosystems becoming more integrated than ever, the idea of cross-platform multiplayer doesn't seem too crazy, especially on Xbox One and Windows 10, where Microsoft is heavily pushing its "Play Anywhere" program, blurring the lines between platforms isn't entirely out of the question.
In an interview with GameSpot, Bluehole said Microsoft's support will "accelerate console development while maintaining quality across all platforms.” Although announced exclusive, it’s possible that PUBG will come to PlayStation 4 after a window of exclusivity to Xbox starting this fall, similar to 2015's “Rise of the Tomb Raider.”
