Normally, my instinct upon witnessing a big bug is to crush its body with my little slipper, but I'll give Hollow Knight: Silksong a pass since it deserves one – the desperately anticipated Metroidvania sequel has now surpassed 535,000 concurrent players as of writing, making it one of the most extravagant launches in Steam history.
For comparison, permanently "most-played" games like Counter-Strike 2, Dota 2, and Path of Exile 2 (clearly, people love a sequel!) have respectively reached all-time peaks of 1.9 million, 1.3 million, and about 579,000 according to SteamDB. These titles are flanked by similar games and numbers; hero shooter Apex Legends had a peak of approximately 624,000 players, hero shooter Marvel Rivals once broke 644,000 concurrents, battle royale PUBG once had a staggering 3.3 million players, and so on.
