Katie

This article feels very one-sided. A peak of 41k concurrent players on Steam really isn’t impressive, especially when this game reportedly needs to sell around 10 million copies just to break even—and potentially 15 to 20 million to help offset the losses from XDefiant, Skull and Bones, Avatar, Star Wars Outlaws, Prince of Persia, and other underperforming titles.

There are also some major context factors missing here. For instance, Valhalla benefited from launching alongside next-gen consoles, and it offered a visually impressive experience for people eager to try out their new hardware. Plus, it came out during the pandemic lockdown period, when people were stuck at home and had more time for 100+ hour open-world games.

Another key point is that Steam’s user base has grown substantially. Back in 2020, Steam had about 23.5 million peak concurrent users. Today, that number has nearly doubled to over 40 million. So if Shadows is launching into a much larger ecosystem but still isn’t matching or surpassing older titles in player count, that’s not a good sign—it actually suggests declining interest, not growth.