Black Myth: Wukong goes ape with well over 2 million players at launch, surpassing Palworld as the second most-played Steam game ever released

Black Myth: Wukong.

What you need to know

• The long-awaited action RPG Black Myth: Wukong released this week, and has already managed to achieve a concurrent player count of well over 2 million on Steam.
• Specifically, the game's record is 2,358,580 players, which makes it the second most-played game in Steam history. It's taken that title from January's Palworld, and is only superseded by PUBG: BATTLEGROUNDS' 3,257,248 concurrent player count record.
• Hype for Black Myth has been steadily growing since it was announced in 2020, with fans enamored with its spectacle-heavy boss fights and combat mechanics.
• Its ties to the classical novel Journey to the West and Chinese mythology have also drawn lots of interest from the Chinese gaming market, which is expected to swell to 730 million players by 2027.