The long-anticipated Sons of the Forest has finally entered early access on Steam and it’s already off to an incredible start. As reported by SteamDB and Steam Charts, the game has hit a peak player count of 269,563 players on its first day of release. This is more than double the all-time peak of its predecessor, The Forest, which only ever managed to hit around 76K. It’s also more than double that of the comparable game Raft, which entered 1.0 release last year and rocketed up the charts to about 100K concurrent players.
Hey Everyone,
Sons Of The Forest is now available in Early Access on Steam!— Endnight Games (@EndNightGame) February 23, 2023
What does this mean for Sons of the Forest? Well, apart from having a wave of interest flooding over it and the sheer amount of players actually crashing Steam, it stands to reason that developer Endnight Games has a certified hit on its hands. The Forest became one of the most talked about survival titles back in 2014, but a plethora of other games have since risen up and stolen its crown. There was every chance that Sons of the Forest would be a dud.
The larger player count could also be down to how much more ubiquitous streaming is in the modern era. The Forest launched at a time when Twitch was still relatively niche, even if both Sony and Microsoft’s then-latest consoles supported out-of-the-box Twitch functionality. Almost a decade later, we’ve seen the rise of influencers and esports teams and even the creation and dismantling of competing platforms (RIP Mixer).
Hey everyone,
Check out our latest trailer focused on multiplayer and building!https://t.co/jqiMezjW9w
— Endnight Games (@EndNightGame) February 20, 2023
As of the time of writing, Sons of the Forest is rocking 589K viewers on Twitch. That puts it currently at the number one most viewed thing on the platform, surpassing the nebulous “Just Chatting” category and juggernauts such as Valorant, Fortnite, and League of Legends. That’s kind of ludicrous for a game most people have likely never heard of.
While the game has no hope of toppling Counter-Strike: Global Offensive or even DOTA 2 on Steam, the fact that it is even sitting close to those two on Steam’s player charts is really impressive. Whether or not this popularity can be maintained is the real question, but Sons of the Forest is certainly coming out all guns blazing.
