Viking survival game Valheim has sold 2m copies in less than two weeks
UPDATE: Now 3m copies in 16 days.
UPDATE 19/2/20: Popular Viking survival game Valheim has shifted another million copies in just four more days - making for an overall total of 3m units sold in just over two weeks.
The astonishing success comes alongside an equally strong performance on Twitch, where it regularly among the platform's top-streamed titles. 20m hours of Valheim gameplay have been watched there so far.
This week set a new peak concurrent record of 390,000 Steam players - more than the all-time record for many AAA titles. Not bad for a game still in early access.
19 Beginner's Tips to Get You Started in Valheim - Valheim Beginners Guide Tips & Tricks PC Gameplay
ORIGINAL STORY 15/2/21: Valheim, the breakout viking survival hit from Swedish developer Iron Gate, has now sold over 2m copies in less than two weeks of early access release.
Valheim sets 1-10 players loose in a lushly lo-fi, procedurally-generated purgatory of dense forests, sparking oceans, and snowy mountain peaks, nudging them toward an eventual end-goal of reaching Asgard. Before that, though, there's a heap of co-operative exploration, crafting, building, and battling to be done, as players gradually assemble the tools required to defeat powerful ancient beasts (and construct pleasingly homely huts along the way).
Iron Gate launched Valheim into Steam early access on 2nd February, and its popularity quickly skyrocketed. It celebrated a peak of 160,000 concurrent players within its first week of release, and that's more than doubled in the days since, topping 367,000 concurrents as of today.
Those numbers, if you're wondering, have pushed it passed such perennial Steam favourites as Team Fortress 2, Grand Theft Auto 5, and Ark: Survival Evolved, with only the likes of Dota 2 and Counter-Strike remaining unbothered in the concurrent rankings.
It also makes Valheim the latest in a growing list of indie multiplayer titles to enjoy sudden, massive success over the last year, joining the likes of Fall Guys (which smashed through the 2m sales barrier in its first week on Steam) and Among Us, which hit a peak of 1.5 million players last September - enjoying belated success after a comparatively muted launch in 2018.
"Everyone at Iron Gate has really been appreciating all the messages, love, questions and thoughts from all of you, so please keep them coming!", Valheim's developer wrote in its 2m players announcement on Steam. "We're so excited to continue working with you all to reach Asgard together, and we'll be sharing more soon on what's next."
Valheim is expected to remain in early access development - where it will receive the like of new biomes, enemies, bosses, and weapons - for at least a year.