PoE2 and Marvel Rivals Sets Gaming World Ablaze with Successful Weekend Launch

Path of Exile 2 and Marvel Rivals ignited the gaming world with spectacularly successful launch weekends. Discover the impressive milestones achieved by these two titles.

A Half-Million Strong Player Base

A Weekend of Record-Breaking Launches

The weekend saw the triumphant release of two highly anticipated games, each attracting a remarkable 500,000 players on their launch days. Marvel Rivals, a free-to-play, team-based PVP arena shooter, launched on December 6th, followed by Path of Exile 2's Early Access release on December 7th.

Path of Exile 2, exclusively available via paid Early Access on Steam, achieved a peak concurrent player count of 578,569. This impressive number, coupled with over 1 million Twitch viewers on launch day, underscores the game's immense popularity. The overwhelming influx of players even briefly overwhelmed SteamDB, the popular database site, leading to a humorous public acknowledgement from SteamDB itself.

Prior to launch, Path of Exile 2 had already surpassed 1 million pre-orders, a figure that rapidly climbed in the hours leading up to the servers going live. The unprecedented demand necessitated a last-minute database upgrade to handle the massive influx of players purchasing Early Access. Despite these efforts, some players encountered login issues and disconnections, highlighting the exceptionally high anticipation surrounding the game's release.

Read Game8's comprehensive review of Path of Exile 2's Early Access build!