The massively popular first-person shooter, "PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds," continues to rise in popularity. It broke numerous records on PC gaming platform Steam and overtook giant titles like "Defense of the Ancients 2" and "Counter-Strike: Global Offensive." This week, the Battle Royale slugfest reached a new milestone, topping two million concurrent players, which is a first in the history of Steam.
Much of the recent steep increase in the game's popularity can be accounted to its growing influence in Asia. In fact, "Battlegrounds" actually experienced a dip in the number of U.S.-based players recently. However, this was greatly offset by a large player base growth in countries like China and Korea.
With its new two million mark, "Battlegrounds" is starting to prove that it is on a league of its own, as the previous high record was by another title, Valve's own "Dota 2." The game hit a peak at 1.3 million concurrent players, whereas the third highest is "Counter Strike: Global Offensive," which peaked at a distant 630,000 online players.
Furthermore, the new record set by the game is not expected to last long, as the title's player base has been growing in leaps and bounds in the past weeks.
According to unofficial estimates, "PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds" has sold over 15.6 million copies on Steam. While that figure is great by any measure, it is especially astounding for a game that is technically unfinished. "Battlegrounds" is still on its early access, with an official PC launch expected later this year.
The game's popularity is also expected to gain another huge boost once the title gets released on Xbox One before the end of the year.
PlayerUnknown himself, Brendan Greene, is expecting the game to hit the popularity level of "League of Legends." The said game is estimated to have 100 million monthly players and five million concurrent players at any given time. While these are lofty expectations, it is not impossible, given "PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds" recent achievements.
