Since the debut of Netflix’s hotly-anticipated The Witcher adaptation, The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt’s player numbers of on Steam have been skyrocketing. Now, over four years after its 2015 release, CD Projekt Red’s acclaimed RPG has recorded its highest ever peak concurrent player count at 94,451.
[Update 01/03/2020]: The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt has now exceeded 100,000 concurrent users.
It’s a pretty astonishing result given how popular the game already was during its launch window. Holding a Metacritic average of over 90 on all platforms and helping to boost franchise sales of The Witcher to over 20 million, you’d have been forgiven for thinking The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt’s best days were behind it.
It will be fascinating to hear how the impact of Netflix’s show has positively impacted CD Projekt Red’s revenue for the period. During its previous earnings call, there was no mention of any projected influence from the show, but it’s almost certainly going to have had an impact if the Steam numbers are reflecting new purchases of the game.
Netflix’s The Witcher adaptation has had a mostly positive critical reception, though the jumbled timelines that separate Geralt, Yennefer, and Ciri’s character arcs have been widely criticized as confusing. Next season, which has already been greenlit by Netflix, will likely focus on the first of author Andrzej Sapkowski’s novel saga, Blood of Elves.
If you’re interested in which The Witcher 3 characters are likely to make an appearance then do check out our recent feature on exactly that.
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