Hades 2’s God-Like Steam Player Count Hits a Milestone the OG Could Only Dream of

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After over a year in early access, Supergiant Games’ highly anticipated sequel, Hades 2, launched on PC and Nintendo consoles last week. Given that the first Hades is often hailed as one of the best roguelike games of all time, expectations were incredibly high – and thankfully, the game seems to have lived up to the hype. As of today, Hades 2 is the top-rated game of the year on Metacritic, even beating out titles like Clair Obscur: Expedition 33, Blue Prince, and Hollow Knight: Silksong. Interestingly, the game has achieved something the original Hades never did: it’s reached a significant new milestone.

After selling over a million copies in just three days after its 1.0 release, Hades was clearly a major commercial win for Supergiant Games. However, it didn’t actually reach as large an audience as one might expect. When the game initially launched in early access on Steam – following a year as an exclusive on the Epic Games Store – it only peaked at around 6,000 concurrent players. While this wasn’t entirely unexpected, given that Hades wasn’t widely known at the time, its full release didn’t perform much better on Valve’s platform. SteamDB data shows that Hades reached only 37,000 concurrent players in the days following its 1.0 launch – a small fraction of the number of Steam users that Hades 2 attracted when it was released.

Hades 2’s Peak Player Count on Steam is Way Higher Compared to Hades 1’s

Unlike Hades 1, Hades 2 Had a Really Successful Early Access Launch

Supergiant Games surprised everyone by releasing Hades 2 into early access last May, with no prior announcement. Despite the lack of a traditional marketing push, the game instantly grabbed the attention of the Steam community. On the day following its early access launch, Hades 2 impressively reached 100,000 concurrent players on Steam, quickly exceeding the original Hades‘s early access numbers. Notably, around the same time, the original Hades also hit a new peak of 54,240 concurrent players on the same platform. It appears that the launch of Hades 2 encouraged many fans to revisit and play the first game again.

Hades 2’s 1.0 Launch Attracted Far More Players than Hades 1 Ever Did

The full release of Hades 2 was even more popular than its early access version. On September 25th, when Hades 2 launched on PC, Nintendo Switch, and Nintendo Switch 2, it attracted over 84,000 players on Steam. Just three days after that, the game hit a peak of 112,947 concurrent players on Valve’s platform. This is roughly three times the number of Steam players who were playing Hades when it initially launched, and double the player count from May 2024.

Similar to other console makers, Nintendo doesn’t share how many people are playing games on its systems. So, when considering those who purchased Hades 2 on both the Switch and the upcoming Switch 2, the game’s actual number of players playing at the same time is likely much more than the reported 112,000.

Hades 1 and Hades 2’s Steam Concurrent Player Counts Compared

Game Hades 1 Hades 2
# of Players on EA Release 1,040 73,767
Date of EA Release Dec 10, 2019 May 6, 2024
Peak # of Players Within EA Release Month 6,240 103,567
Date of Peak Player Count Dec 22, 2019 May 7, 2024
# of Players on Full Release 11,495 84,419
Date of Full Release Sep 17, 2020 Sep 25, 2025
Peak # of Players Within Full Release Month 37,749 112,947
Date of Peak Player Count Sep 27, 2020 Sep 28, 2025
# of All-Time Peak Players 54,240 112,947
Date of All-Time Peak Player Count May 12, 2024 Sep 28, 2025

Hades 1 was originally released in early access on the Epic Games Store on December 6, 2018.

Despite Launching During a Very Competitive Period, Hades 2 Still Managed to Be a Hit

Hades 2’s strong player numbers are even more remarkable considering it launched during a busy time for video games. September had a lot of major releases, not just from independent developers, but also from large publishers. On the very same day Hades 2 came out, Konami released Silent Hill f, the first new main game in the Silent Hill series in over ten years. At the same time, Sega finally released Sonic Racing: CrossWorlds, a game aiming to compete with Mario Kart. Similar to Hades 2, both of these games were quite popular, and Silent Hill f specifically sold over 1 million copies within only 24 hours.

Besides those two games, Hades 2 faced competition from Dying Light: The Beast, Borderlands 4, and the free-to-play Skate reboot, all released around the same time as its full launch. Even though Hades 2 isn’t perfect, Supergiant Games should be commended for creating a game that has competed well against these major, big-budget titles, especially considering it was made with a relatively small team and budget.

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2025-09-30 22:35