The game by Shift Up and Sony Interactive Entertainment has had a great start on PC. It could have been even better if they hadn’t forced DRM.

Stellar Blade has become Sony’s game with the highest concurrent player count ever on Steam. With over 100,000 players, it surpassed all other Sony single-player games in terms of concurrent players, an impressive feat. Helldivers 2, a multiplayer game, has a concurrent peak of over 450,000 players, making it Sony’s most popular game. However, the single-player Stellar Blade surpassed the concurrent peak of other single-player adventure games, such as Ghost of Tsushima (77,154), God of War (73,529), and Marvel’s Spider-Man Remastered (66,436).

However, according to SteamDB, Stellar Blade has such a high score that it’s now ranked fifth on Steam’s list of the most-played games. Ahead of it are Counter-Strike 2, PUBG: Battlegrounds, DotA 2, and Apex Legends. The top three games have over 500,000 concurrent players and are unlikely to be surpassed by Stellar Blade, which currently has 150,931 concurrent players. However, Stellar Blade could surpass Respawn Entertainment’s game, which has 185,067 concurrent players. Stellar Blade’s record so far is 183,830 players, and it will likely push that number higher this weekend when more players are usually online.

Stellar Blade was released for PC on June 11. It currently has overwhelmingly positive user reviews on Valve’s client. However, as mentioned earlier, the game’s score could be even better. Some refuse to buy Shift Up’s game because it has Denuvo. Sony has never used this copy protection, which increases system requirements and requires a constant internet connection. Those who like the game will buy it regardless, and the opposite is not true; those who would download it without Denuvo might buy it later.

Congratulations to Shift Up! However, they could have learned from Inzoi’s example. In response to criticism, the developers removed Denuvo.

Source: Gamesindustry, SteamDB