Horizon Forbidden West becomes Sony's 7th biggest launch on Steam, peaking at just 25k concurrent players

Horizon Forbidden West has just been released on Steam. So it is time to take a closer look at the launch numbers for another PlayStation game port for PC.

The PC version of Horizon Forbidden West is the Complete Edition, which also includes bonus content and the Burning Shores expansion. Launched on March 21, it received a “Very Positive” rating on Steam, with 92% of the 922 user reviews being positive.

Many of the early players were amazed with the game’s visual presentation, also praising Nixxes Software for making another great and well-optimized PC port. This is the Sony-owned studio responsible for PC versions of Horizon Zero Dawn, Marvel’s Spider-Man, and Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart. More details about Forbidden West’s port and its performance can be found in a recent Digital Foundry video.

According to SteamDB, Horizon Forbidden West peaked at 25,258 concurrent players within hours of launching on Steam. This makes it the 16th biggest launch of 2024 in terms of peak CCU, right between online party game Astral Party (34.3k CCU) and survival title Pacific Drive (18.5k CCU).

Although Forbidden West may increase its CCU numbers over the weekend, the initial results are not so great, especially compared to other PC ports from PlayStation Studios. For example, Horizon Zero Dawn peaked at an impressive 56.5k concurrent players upon its launch in August 2020.

The sequel currently ranks 7th in peak CCU among all titles published by PlayStation PC LLC. It is above games like Marvel’s Spider-Man: Miles Morales (13.5k CCU), Uncharted: Legacy of Thieves Collection (10.8k CCU), and Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart (8.7k CCU).

Top 10 PlayStation-published games on Steam by peak concurrent players (via SteamDB)

Helldivers 2, which launched simultaneously on PS5 and PC earlier this year, remains the leader with over 458.7k concurrent players. Also keep in mind that Steam accounted for nearly 60% of its total sales in the US, according to data from Circana.

Arrowhead’s co-op hit is followed by God of War (73.5k CCU), Marvel’s Spider-Man (66.4k CCU), Horizon Zero Dawn, The Last of Us Part I (36.4k CCU), and Days Gone (27.4k CCU).

Guerrilla Games’ title has a chance to eventually surpass Days Gone and TLoU Part I, but it is unlikely to get ahead of the first game, let alone break into the top 3.