PoE2 and Marvel Rivals Sets Gaming World Ablaze with Successful Weekend Launch

Path of Exile 2 and Marvel Rivals ignited the gaming world with remarkably successful launch weekends. Discover the details of these impressive achievements!

A Half-Million Strong Player Base

A Weekend of Record-Breaking Launches

The weekend saw two monumental game launches, each attracting an astounding 500,000 players on their respective launch days. Marvel Rivals, a free-to-play team-based PVP arena shooter, debuted on December 6th, followed by Path of Exile 2's Early Access release on December 7th.

Path of Exile 2's Early Access launch was particularly noteworthy, reaching a peak of 578,569 concurrent players on Steam alone. This impressive figure is even more remarkable considering the game's paid Early Access status. Twitch viewership for the game surpassed 1 million on launch day. The overwhelming popularity even temporarily overwhelmed SteamDB, the database tracking Steam statistics, leading to a humorous acknowledgment from SteamDB itself.

Prior to launch, Path of Exile 2 had already exceeded 1 million pre-orders, a number that rapidly increased in the hours before servers went live. The unexpected influx of players purchasing Early Access prompted a last-minute database upgrade by the development team to handle the traffic surge. Despite these efforts, players experienced some initial server issues, including disconnections and login queues, a testament to the game's high anticipation.

Read Game8's review of Path of Exile 2's Early Access version!