Rust, Valheim, and now Outriders: The $60 Steam game taking on the internet by storm in less than a week after release

Square Enix's Outriders landed 65th in the list of All-Time Peak players on Steam within a week of the game's release.

Peaking at 125,000 concurrent players, Outriders secured a position on the list of most played games on Steam. Square Enix's latest RPG shooter title has surpassed popular games like Team Fortress 2 and Rust in terms of users in the first week.

On the list of "All-Time Peak" concurrent players, Outriders already boasts higher numbers than Tom Clancy's The Division and Borderlands 2.

Having said that, Outriders costs a whopping $60, making it a fairly heavy investment for a game that is still posing a bunch of issues.

But if the steady rise in player count is any indication, Outriders has a lot to offer. Be it the fresh concept of classes that can be modded or the immersive storyline featuring many side quests.

Together with our friends from @SquareEnix, we are making progress on server issues and other issues raised. We hope you’ll be able to enjoy @Outriders fully very soon. Enoch is calling, but don’t forget to spend enough time with your loved ones.Happy Easter! #PCF pic.twitter.com/C728q9arBv

— People Can Fly (@PCFPeopleCanFly) April 3, 2021

Servers today are looking... fine? 👀And we're at our highest concurrent player-peak to date? 👀

— Outriders (@Outriders) April 4, 2021

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The unprecedented rise of Outriders

Outriders isn't the first game in 2021 to witness a massive surge shortly after its release. Earlier in 2021, Valheim received a similarly positive response from the community. The game amassed more than five million players within the first two months of the game's release in early access.

Having said that, Valheim offered an entirely different experience for players in comparison to Outriders. The latter features a fast-paced punch-and-shoot gameplay with an immersive storyline along with a bunch of side quests and additional content to explore.

TFW when you hit that sweet 100k followers milestone and want to thank everyone in the community and their dog, but you're also wary of casting a good-news-tweet-curse on the servers... 👀Thank you for all your patience everyone - we're here and working hard for you! pic.twitter.com/okmSfEVbWg

— Outriders (@Outriders) April 1, 2021

Listed as one of the top-selling games on Steam, Outriders is also available on PlayStation, Xbox, and Google Stadia. It might even rack up even higher numbers than Valheim. However, the reviews received by the game have been mixed.

While the community is all for the immersive story-guided co-op RPG shooter, persistent server issues, as well as multiple in-game bugs and glitches, have been making life difficult for players.

This action-packed .gif is brought to you by @Outriders, which is available today with @XboxGamePass! pic.twitter.com/6JltqLXSD3

— Xbox (@Xbox) April 1, 2021

Nevertheless, if Square Enix and the developers at People Can Fly manage to work out these issues, Outriders could become one of the most played games of 2021.