After more than four years in Early Access, Last Epoch has finally launched globally. It was a huge success, although technical issues slightly clouded the ideal picture.
Last Epoch is an action RPG developed by Eleventh Hour Games (EHG), an indie studio founded in 2018, and funded through Kickstarter, where it raised over $255k.
CEO Judd Cobler had no experience in game development, but joined forces with a team of die-hard fans of the genre to realize their own vision of what a modern hack and slash RPG should look like. So, in some way, this pits Last Epoch against AAA titles like Diablo, with the studio constantly emphasizing its roots and commitment to the community.
Since the Early Access launch in April 2019, EHG has worked on adding new classes and other content, as well as improving gameplay mechanics and fixing bugs. Version 1.0, released on February 21, received generally positive reviews from critics, with an average Metascore of 75.
Player reception was far less positive. Most users praise Last Epoch for its gameplay, but complain about its technical state. The main criticism is aimed at server issues and overall instability, resulting in a “Mixed” rating on Steam. At the moment of writing, only 59% of the 32k user reviews left in the last 30 days are positive, with an overall rating of 69% based on more than 55k lifetime reviews.
It is worth noting that while Eleventh Hour Games remains independent, it received a low-equity investment from Tencent in 2022. The exact stake acquired by the Chinese tech giant is undisclosed, but the studio noted that this partnership should ensure the “stability of our development pipeline through the full 1.0 release of Last Epoch” and allowed it to purchase required hardware for server infrastructure.
But it seems that the team didn’t expect such huge interest from players. During the EA period, Last Epoch recorded 40.5k concurrent players at max (via SteamDB). But the game quickly peaked at over 150k CCU right after its 1.0 launch, reaching 264,708 CCU over the weekend. And there is a potential for even higher numbers, especially if EHG manages to fix the technical issues and increase server capacity as soon as possible.
Right now, Last Epoch is the third-biggest Steam release of 2024 in terms of peak CCU, behind only Helldivers 2 and Palworld*:
*SteamDB ranks Sons of the Forest at #3, but the game reached its peak of 414.2k concurrent players during its EA period last year
- Palworld — 2.1 million CCU;
- Helldivers 2 — 458.7k CCU;
- Last Epoch — 264.7k CCU;
- Enshrouded — 160.4k CCU;
- Granblue Fantasy: Relink — 114k CCU;
- Deep Rock Galactic: Survivor — 56.9k CCU;
- Tekken 8 — 49.9k CCU;
- Nightingale — 47.5k CCU;
- Like a Dragon: Infinite Wealth — 46.1k CCU.
- Persona 3 Reload — 45k CCU.
The 264k peak also makes Last Epoch the number one hack and slash action RPG on Steam in terms of peak concurrent players, outshining titles such as Path of Exile (211.6k CCU), Wolcen: Lords of Mayhem (127.5k CCU), and Grim Dawn (61.4k CCU). But it is worth noting that Grinding Gear Games is expected to launch PoE 2 later this year, so it is interesting to see how it will perform.