Breakout early access sensation Valheim, the Nordic-themed survival title that has taken the gaming world by storm, has sold more than 5 million copies since its launch on Steam on February 2, developer Iron Gate Studio announced Wednesday. At a sale price of $ 19.99, that’s about $ 100 million in revenue before taking into account Valve’s cuts and other expenses.
The Swedish studio developed the game with a team of just five people and released it on Steam’s Early Access platform in February. They struggled at one point with the more than 500,000 concurrent players at one point to the top five most popular games on Steam. (It currently sits at number 4 on the Steam maps, just behind Counter-Strike: Global Offensive, Dota 2, en PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds.)
The closest analog to Valheim‘s success is PUBG, which holds the record for the highest number of simultaneous players on Steam at more than 3.2 million. As PUBG, who undoubtedly drove the Battle Royale genre into the mainstream with his then unprecedented 100-player match against rival survival shooters, Valheim combines the craft and survival sim mechanics of popular games such as Minecraft and Rust and give them new life.
‘Valheim continues to garner critics and players praise, with more than 115,000 positive user reviews on Steam, ”Iron Gate and its publisher, Coffee Stain Publishing, wrote in a press release. ‘It also climbed the number of top 250 rated games of all time on the platform, which now stands at number 39. On Twitch, Valheim maintained a steady stream of viewers, and fans now watched more than 35 million hours Valheim game, and played over 16,266 years. ”