Feeling of early access Valheim, the Nordic-themed survival title that is taking over the gaming world, has sold more than 5 million copies since it was released on Steam on February 2, developer Iron Gate Studio announced on Wednesday. At a retail price of $ 19.99, this represents about $ 100 million in revenue before accounting for Valve’s cut and other expenses.
The Swedish studio developed the game with a team of just five people and launched it on Steam’s early access platform in February, struggling to reach the top five most played games on Steam with over 500,000 simultaneous players last month. (Currently in fourth place on the Steam charts, behind only Counter-Strike: Global Offensive, Dota 2, and PlayerUnknown’s battlegrounds.)
The closest analogue to Valheimthe success of is PUBG, which holds the record for most concurrent players on Steam, with over 3.2 million. Like PUBG, who arguably pushed the Battle Royale genre into the mainstream with its unprecedented version of 100 players in competitive survival shooting games, Valheim is combining the simulation mechanics of creating and surviving popular games like Minecraft and Rust and giving them a new life.
“Valheim continues to attract praise from critics and gamers, with more than 115,000 positive reviews from users on Steam, ”wrote Iron Gate and its publisher, Coffee Stain Publishing, in a press release. “It has also risen in the ranking of the 250 most reviewed games of all time on the platform, now in 39th place. On Twitch, Valheim maintained a steady stream of viewers, and fans have spent over 35 million hours watching Valheim gameplay and over 16,266 years playing. ”