It felt like an eternity since we’d seen a major MMO launch—until this summer. Crowfall, Swords of Legends Online, and Amazon’s forthcoming New World have all added to the oversupply. But, of the three, New World appears to be the most popular, based on the 190,000 gamers that entered its closed beta at the same time yesterday.
According to SteamDB, New World had a peak of 190,811 concurrent players and now has slightly more than 160,000 users. That makes New World the fourth most popular game on Steam, slightly ahead of Grand Theft Auto 5 and Apex Legends. It’s also a big hit on Twitch, where it’s presently the second most popular game, with over 300,000 spectators.
However, there are significant limitations to these figures. The closed beta is now available to individuals who have pre-ordered the game, however, because the beta and the real game are listed separately on Steam, it’s possible that some gamers pre-ordered and then canceled their purchase simply to obtain beta access. There are also likely to be a large number of gamers that jumped in without having to pay anything because of freebies or because they already had access from the previous testing. It’ll be fascinating to see how the statistics from the limited beta compare to the actual launch on August 31.
New World has evolved significantly since its initial announcement. Tyler played it in May and thought it had evolved into a more traditional MMO than early glances at its PvP keep defense fights suggested. Next week, we’ll have updated impressions.
If you intend on playing the New World closed beta (you can gain access by pre-ordering it on Steam), be warned that players with EVGA RTX 3090s are getting their cards bricked while playing. There doesn’t appear to be a clear consensus on what’s going on or why, but it’s something to keep an eye on.
The closed beta period for New World lasts until August 2. The complete game will be available on August 31.