‘Yu-Gi-Oh! Master Duel’ hit third in Steam concurrent player count

After a surprise launch yesterday January 19, Yu-Gi-Oh! Master Duel managed to hit third in Steam’s concurrent player count.

Yu-Gi-Oh! Master Duel got a surprise release yesterday and managed to be the third most concurrently played game for a short while. This placed it above games like Apex Legends and GTA V, games with longstanding, pre-established audiences. The game hit an all-time peak player count of 219,368 earlier today and is currently sitting at just under 160,000 players right now, placing it as the fourth most concurrently played game at the time of writing.

This obviously doesn’t include player counts on PlayStation, Mobile, Nintendo Switch, or Xbox, so it’s likely the player count is even higher. Players are also able to switch between platforms, as it features cross-saves. And Yu-Gi-Oh! Master Duel features cross-play, meaning you don’t have to worry about where you play the game.

Back in October, Yu-Gi-Oh! Master Duel was confirmed to be releasing “this winter,” but received no specific release date past that. The game was dropped without any warning yesterday, and with its current player count, it looks like it is set to be quite successful. The game features over 10,000 cards, and is free-to-play, though it does contain in-game purchases.

Yu-Gi-Oh! Master Duel potentially isn’t the only Yu-Gi-Oh! game we can expect this year, as Yu-Gi-Oh! Cross Duel is currently in development for mobile devices. Cross Duel puts a twist on the traditional format, by having four players face off against each other.

In other news, Super Rare Games have announced their publishing label, Super Rare Originals. They also shared that they would be starting with five games, including platformer Grapple Dog and arcade-style shooter Post Void. “Having worked with 100s of developers across the last four years, we want to support talented indie devs long-term and hopefully help to start changing the industry to be more developer-focused,” Super Rare said.