Hades 2 Early Access player count clears Baldur’s Gate 3, GTA 5, more as indie sequel soars

Hades 2’s Early Access launch has been an unprecedented success for Supergiant Games. The indie sequel’s concurrent player count on Steam has already cleared industry juggernauts like Baldur’s Gate 3, PUBG, GTA 5, and more, and it’s only the beginning.   

After three years of active development, the earliest public build of Hades 2 is now live. Eager roguelike fans are able to jump in and experience what’s essentially a full game, with the Early Access label not quite cutting it in this instance.

With dozens of hours of content on offer right out of the gate, and the experience polished better than even some full AAA games, it’s been a smash hit for the relatively small indie team at Supergiant. So much so, the team’s first-ever sequel has quickly become its most successful launch. 

Just one day on the market and the Early Access version of Hades 2 has set a new concurrent player record for the studio, soaring through Steam’s top 10 most played games, and establishing itself as a true indie hit with a peak of more than 100,000 players checking it out all at once.

As Steam’s current best-seller overall, Hades 2 has made an immediate impact. Through its first 24 hours, the sequel peaked at 103,567 concurrent players, placing it above the likes of mega-popular live service titles like PUBG and Rust, and even last year’s consensus GOTY in Baldur’s Gate 3.

But not only is the sequel doing well, but as a consequence, so too is the original game. The first Hades has seen a staggering resurgence to the point it’s just a few hundred players away from breaking its own all-time concurrent player record as well.

Back in September 2020, when Hades arrived in full after its Early Access window, the game peaked at 37,586 concurrent players on Steam. In the past 24 hours, 36,043 concurrent players came close to eclipsing that longstanding record.

As for Supergiant’s other titles, none come close to matching the sheer popularity of the Hades series, at least on Steam. Below is a quick look at all-time concurrent player count peaks in descending order:

• Hades 2: 103,567
• Hades: 37,586
• Transistor: 6,657
• Bastion: 4,063
• Pyre: 3,995

The numbers clearly don’t lie, Hades and Hades 2 are far and away the studio’s biggest success stories, and the sequel is only just getting going. Early Access is set to continue through the rest of 2024, meaning more content and improvements are in the pipeline.

With each update, we can expect an influx of players, and with the full version 1.0 release, there’s no doubt we’ll see Hades 2 reaching new heights once again. As word of mouth spreads, expect to see both Hades games continue climbing through the charts on Steam.