The Main Highlights of the Weekend (February 8-9)

A massive PlayStation Network outage occurred, Kingdom Come: Deliverance II entered the top 50 most popular games in Steam history, and Manor Lords reached 3 million copies sold—we're sharing the main events in the gaming industry from the past weekend.

Kingdom Come: Deliverance II

On Sunday night, users worldwide experienced significant issues accessing the PlayStation Network service. Due to the outage, gamers were unable to launch games with online features, and many reported being unable to purchase games in the PlayStation Store and having trouble logging into their accounts. Sony managed to restore PlayStation Network functionality by the evening of the same day. The company did not explain the cause of the outage but offered five additional days of PlayStation Plus subscription as compensation.
In its first weekend after release, Kingdom Come: Deliverance II saw a large influx of players on Steam: on February 9th, it peaked with 256,206 users simultaneously. This set a new record for the game. For comparison, on its release day, its online count was 96,800 fewer. As a result, the medieval RPG from Warhorse Studios ranked 49th in the top games with the highest concurrent players in Steam history, surpassing games like Team Fortress 2 (253,997 players), Monster Hunter: Rise (231,360 players), Dragon’s Dogma 2 (228,585 players), and Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine 2 (225,690 players). Previously, it was reported that the production budget for Kingdom Come: Deliverance II was approximately 1 billion Czech korunas (41 million dollars), which the game recouped on its first day of sales, selling over a million copies.
In the Czech city of Kutná Hora, authorities have decided to capitalize on the popularity of Kingdom Come: Deliverance II by organizing tours of locations from the game. The regional tourism agency announced that they have prepared two routes: with a guide and without. According to the agency, after the release of the first game, tourists began visiting the featured landmarks more frequently. For example, the number of visitors to the Rataje Castle doubled, and the Sázava Monastery and the village of Stříbrná Skalice saw increased interest from tourists. Now, the Czech Republic hopes that the second game will draw tourists to Kutná Hora as well.
Manor Lords is another successful game with a medieval setting. Its publisher, Hooded Horse, boasted that the title's sales reached 3 million copies. It took Manor Lords nine months to achieve this milestone; the game was released in early access on PC on April 26, 2024.