Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice has sold more than two million copies in just ten days.
A press release from publisher Activision states the challenging action adventure game was the most viewed game on Twitch on its launch day, with more than 631 million minutes clocked up by viewers checking out livestreams of the game during its launch weekend. That figured had risen to 1.1 billion minutes watched on Twitch within one week.
Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice is currently rated 90+ rated Metacritic across all platforms, making it Metacritic’s number one ranked game for PC, and second and third for Xbox One and PlayStation 4 respectively.
“Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice has brought something very special and unique to Activision’s portfolio of games. It’s been an honour to work with FromSoftware to help introduce a brand-new franchise to gamers around the world,” said Michelle Fonseca, vice president of product management and marketing at Activision. “The fans have made Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice one of the most incredible game launches of 2019 thus far. The game has performed well on all platforms including PC and we’re excited by the continued support from gamers and critics alike.
“It has been gratifying to see the enjoyment from fans when they overcome each challenge.”
FromSoftware’s Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice is Steam’s biggest launch of 2019 to date. The challenging hack-n-slasher had peaked (at the time of writing) with 124,334 concurrent players, making it then more popular than Steam stalwarts Grand Theft Auto V and Warframe. It’s got some work to do before it can meaningfully challenge any games currently dominating the top three, though – Sekiro’s highest stats lag 390K players behind third-place Counter-Strike: Global Offensive – but it’s an impressive huge achievement for a primarily single-player game.
While Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice hasn’t quite matched the momentum of FromSoftware’s last mainline release, Dark Souls 3 – the third instalment of the trilogy peaked at 129,000 concurrent players – it’s important to note that Sekiro is a completely new IP, and has already outperformed other notable Steam releases this year, including Devil May Cry 5 and Resident Evil 2, which peaked at 88,735 and 74,024 players respectively.