Returnal becomes PlayStation’s second-worst PC launch in terms of peak concurrent players

Released on February 15, Returnal debuted at #8 on Steam’s weekly top sellers charts, behind Hogwarts Legacy, Call of Duty: Modern Warfare II, and Wild Hearts.

The action roguelike game from Finnish studio Housemarque peaked at 6,691 concurrent users (CCU), according to SteamDB. It currently holds an 81% rating on Steam, based on 1,248 player reviews.

Despite generally good reception, the launch of Returnal was one of the weakest for PC ports of PlayStation titles in terms of peak CCU. The only game that showed worse results was Sumo Digital’s platformer Sackboy: A Big Adventure, which peaked at 610 concurrent players.

Top PlayStation games on Steam by peak CCU

• God of War — 73,529 peak CCU, 97% rating (based on 66,209 reviews)
• Marvel’s Spider-Man Remastered — 66,436 peak CCU, 96% rating (based on 41,440 reviews)
• Horizon Zero Dawn — 56,557 peak CCU, 86% rating (based on 68,884 reviews)
• Days Gone — 27,450 peak CCU, 92% rating (based on 37,027 reviews)
• Marvel’s Spider-Man: Miles Morales — 13,539 peak CCU, 94% rating (based on 9,114 reviews)
• Uncharted: Legacy of Thieves Collection — 10,851 peak CCU, 89% rating (based on 6,551 reviews)
• Returnal — 6,691 peak CCU, 81% rating (based on 1,248 reviews)
• Sackboy: A Big Adventure — 610 peak CCU, 87% rating (based on 782 reviews)

One of the factors that could have affected Returnal’s launch stats was probably the lack of a full-fledged marketing campaign. The PC version was announced at The Game Awards 2022 on December 8. A couple of trailers aside, there was a little to no promo material to push the game.

However, the original PlayStation 5 version has sold 560,000 units globally despite receiving positive reviews from critics. These are pretty low numbers compared to Days Gone and other games that Sony doesn’t consider big hits, not to mention the platform’s most successful franchises like God of War and Spider-Man.