The day has finally arrived, where choombas and gonks of all Lifepaths (be they Nomad, Corpo, or Streetkid) can finally roam the streets of Night City and start figuring out how to burn it down. In other words, Cyberpunk 2077 is out today.
It’s not a stretch to say that the game has been highly anticipated, but the day one numbers so far are unprecedented for a single player game. A Twitter thread on CD Projekt RED’s investor relations account lays out the numbers. Over eight million preorders were registered, with some 59% entered for the PC version. Unsurprisingly, given the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic has skewed the format distribution, with 74% of the pre-orders being for digital copies. The company has brought in over $50 million USD just on Steam, with 80%of the royalties going to CDPR.
Given the platform and distribution numbers, the number of players on PC who had their copy basically ready to go on day one is some 4.7 million. That number destroys the 3.7 million day one sales record set by the new World of Warcraft expansion last week. That number will undoubtedly be padded, potentially to well over five million as players go out to buy copies or purchase directly on various digital storefronts, and doesn’t take into account players who are holding off until the next gen versions for PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X/S are released.
PC Gamer reported that within the first two hours after release, over a million gamers were playing the game on Steam. While this isn’t anywhere near the largest concurrent record holder (PUBG, with 3.2 million players), it does absolutely destroy the launch record previously held by Fallout 4 (approximately 473,000 players). And that’s only on Steam. Between Steam, Epic Games Store, GOG Galaxy, GeForce NOW and Stadia, plus the consoles, the overall number is probably considerably higher. Even with the large day one patch, the numbers are nothing short of astounding.
