STALKER 2 shoots to the top of the Steam chart

Horror fans have been waiting a long time for this, but GSC Game World finally released STALKER 2: Heart of Chornobyl unto the world yesterday. Amidst many setbacks – including the ongoing conflict in Ukraine – the team has had to push back development, partly to take care of themselves.

Fortunately, it looks like the wait has been worth it. As of right now, STALKER 2 is rocking the Steam charts. It’s currently dominating the Top Sellers list, coming in at number two just behind the Steam Deck. Of course, pretty much everything ends up behind the Deck. In terms of video games, GSC’s newest release is number one.

That puts it ahead of the likes of Disney Dreamlight Valley (which recently launched its Storybook Vale DLC) and Counter-Strike 2, as well as Call of Duty: Black Ops 6, which fell a couple of places recently.

The numbers speak for themselves

The developer has expressed delight at STALKER 2 surpassing 100,000 concurrent players on PC. At the time of writing, SteamDB is showing 113,587 people logged into the game within the past 24 hours, with over 65,000 currently in a game.

Of course, this is common for new releases, especially ones many have been looking forward to. Games that have been hyped typically find themselves atop the Steam Top Sellers list, which does take into account pre-orders.

How long Heart of Chornobyl will stay up there is anyone’s guess, but we have seen a bunch of launches recently which could knock it down fairly quickly, such as the aforementioned Disney Dreamlight Valley DLC, as well as Microsoft Flight Simulator 2024.

No doubt STALKER 2‘s biggest fans will stick around, though. In any case, GSC Game World has said it intends to stick around, and is proud of what’s been accomplished so far in what the studio is describing as its biggest project to date.