Black Myth: Wukong Instantly Becomes Steam’s Most Played Single-Player Game of All Time

Black Myth: Wukong just came out today, and already it’s flown past every other single-player game on Steam to set a new and very impressive record in terms of concurrent players. Right now, Black Myth: Wukong has 2,194,769 people playing it on Steam, and that number just keeps going up. The amount of players puts the game behind only PUBG: Battlegrounds, but it’s surpassed everything else on Steam already including Elden Ring, Cyberpunk 2077, and surprise sensations like Palworld.

Palworld peaked at 2,101,867 players, for context, so the numbers put up by Black Myth: Wukong aren’t blowing the Pokemon-like game out of the water just yet, but considering how Cyberpunk 2077 peaked at just over a million concurrent players, the Black Myth: Wukong numbers are pretty unprecedented for a single-player game. The only game ahead of Black Myth Wukong now, PUBG: Battlegrounds, put up a peak concurrent count of 3,257,248 back when the game was still just called PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds or “PUBG,” a number that’s remained untouched. Black Myth: Wukong would have to gain over a million more players this week to beat PUBG which could very well happen considering how well the game’s done so far, but it’d be quite the feat to do so.

Billed as an action RPG where you play as the mythical Wukong, the game is loosely based around the famous Chinese story Journey to the West. It’s been likened to Dark Souls, Elden Ring the newer God of War, and other tough games like those with intricate combat and tons of bosses for players to battle. Given that it’s a game based on Chinese mythology, it’s expected that the Chinese Steam community is playing a significant part in these numbers being so high, though neither Steam nor SteamDB break down numbers that way, so it’s unclear what the regional distribution of players looks like at this time.

The popularity and visibility of Black Myth: Wukong has been driven largely by gameplay and other previews of the game that showed off bosses and impressive graphics, though the game’s also been in the news for less favorable reasons, too. Reports from months ago alleged a history of sexism within the game’s developer, Game Science, while guidelines supposedly issued to content creators looking to play the game were said to forbid mentions of feminism, Covid, and other topics. Though overall negative in their subject matter, both instances again pushed Black Myth: Wukong in front of viewers who may not have heard of it much prior to those reports.

Black Myth: Wukong is currently out on Steam and on the PS5. An Xbox Series X|S version is on the way, but it was not ready at release.