The Finals instantly smashes MW3’s player count to become a breakout hit on Steam

The Finals being shadowdropped at The Game Awards has clearly worked in their favor, with the title instantly becoming one of Steam’s most popular games and soaring far above competitors like Call of Duty: MW3.

Hot off the heels of an incredibly successful beta period, The Finals shadow-dropped their game at The Game Awards and made it instantly available for everyone to play.

While being a free-to-play game gives The Finals a bit of an edge over the competition when it comes to its barrier of entry in comparison to full-price games, it’s hard to deny just how meteoric its launch has been.

What’s more, The Finals has maintained its playerbase on day 2, reaching even greater heights as its peak player count went over 200k compared to MW3’s at around 140k.

The Finals instantly tops the Steam charts

It’s hard to imagine any game toppling the likes of Counter-Strike 2 with its consistent 1.2m+ concurrent players and DOTA 2’s 700k, but the games below it have been in a constant scramble as of late.

Lethal Company really shook up the charts when it broke the 100k concurrent player barrier and had sales that put it at the top of the best-seller chart, and The Finals has had an even bigger launch.

With the much-anticipated multiplayer title hitting 200k peak concurrent users on launch and 221k the day after, The Finals’ launch has been wildly successful.

It’s already got over 20k reviews on Steam, with the vast majority of them being positive. Though the game has had server issues here and there and some gripes from players about minor changes since the beta, it’s been holding strong and gaining players over time.

For comparison’s sake, Apex Legends has a 336k 24 hour peak, GTA V has 253k, Baldur’s Gate 3 has 150K, and MW3 has 140k at the time of writing. It’s important to bear in mind that MW3 is also available on Battle.net and that CoD is incredibly popular on console, but these numbers are still very promising for The Finals.

Whether or not this game can maintain the momentum generated by its incredibly successful launch remains to be seen.