How Many People Play Elden Ring? (User & Growth Stats)
Video Games have been getting some great releases since the pandemic. This year, the much-anticipated launch of Elden Ring happened in February. During the days and weeks following the launch, Elden Ring has been amassing millions of players in Steam alone. So, how has the spiritual successor of Dark Souls been fairing since its big release and how many people still play Elden Ring?
Even though it was a massive hit on release Elden Ring lost a huge number of players just a month after it was released. The current number of players stands at 25,698.0 players for the last 30 days according to Steam Charts data. Even though the game suffered a massive loss of players and popularity (at least on Twitch) it still managed to rake in enough money, almost outselling the whole Dark Souls franchise.
The game’s original success may have had something to do with the involvement of the Game of Thrones author, George R. R. Martin. The hit author provided several materials for the game’s setting. Now that the hype has settled down, let’s analyze the number of players that Eldern Ring has.
How Many people play Elden Ring?
According to SteamDB, Elden Ring had over 10 million players, and it ranked as the second most played game. The first was Counter-Strike: Global Offensive, with 750,499 concurrent players. Unfortunately, the data concerning other consoles were unavailable.
So far, among the Souls-like titles Software released for the PC, Elden Ring has broken its all-time record and is now the king of the list. Elden Ring even surpassed Dark Souls III by a long shot. Dark Souls III only amassed 129,975 concurrent players as compared to the current From Software giant.
| Game Title | Number of Concurrent Players |
|---|---|
| Elden Ring | 764,832 |
| Dark Souls III | 129,975 |
| Sekiro | 125,315 |
| Dark Souls II | 79,528 |
| Dark Souls Remastered | 24,501 |
| Dark Souls II: Scholar of the First Sin | 12,106 |
| Dark Souls: Prepare to Die Edition | 11,259 |
But those are all data from the game’s launch, it’s time to analyze the old data with some fresher numbers. According to SteamDB which provided us with the first set of data, Elden Ring currently has around 37,459 players. The all-time peak from 8 months ago remains unchanged, it still stands at around 953,426 players.
According to the other source, Steam Charts Elden Ring had 25,698.0 players in the last 30 days, the number is down -7.42% percent when compared to the last month’s data which showed 27,756.9 players. You can see the data for yourself in the table below.
| Month | The average number of players | % gain / loss |
|---|---|---|
| Last 30 Days | 25,698.0 | -7.42% |
| September 2022 | 27,756.9 | -10.68% |
| August 2022 | 31,076.0 | -12.79% |
| July 2022 | 35,632.8 | -28.95% |
| June 2022 | 50,150.3 | -44.31% |
| May 2022 | 211,468.9 | -59.49% |
As you can see, Elden Ring lost quite a lot of players in the months following the release. The largest amount of players lost was recorded in April, a month after the game was released. Elden Ring lost -59.49% of active players, at least on Steam.
The trend seems to be slowing down at least.
What’s the maximum number of players per day?
While the game is still brand new, Elden Ring had an all-time peak of 891,638 concurrent players in the days following the release. With about 1.2 million players who were actively playing Elden Ring. Meanwhile, an estimated 10 million copies of the game have been sold.
Nowadays the situation is different, the last recorded peak that happened in the last 30 days was 43,754 players. It’s not bad, but it shows a drastic decrease in popularity over the 8-month period.
Elden Ring player count by country
According to the data provided by Player Counter, most Elden Ring players come from the United States standing at 20.44%. The United States are followed by China standing at 5.11%, the United Kingdom standing at 4.88%, Brazil at 4.22%, and Germany at 4.21%.
Elden Ring was also the third-largest physical lunch in the UK for the first quarter of 2022. The first two large launches belonged to the games Pokemon Legends of Arceus and Horizon Forbidden West. So the large amount of players from the UK is not at all surprising.
| Rank | Title |
|---|---|
| 1 | Elden Ring |
| 2 | Horizon: Forbidden West |
| 3 | Pokemon Legends: Arceus |
| 4 | Mario Kart 8: Deluxe |
| 5 | FIFA 22 |
| 6 | Call of Duty: Vanguard |
| 7 | Dying Light 2: Stay Human |
| 8 | Animal Crossing: New Horizon |
| 9 | Minecraft (Switch) |
| 10 | Grand Theft Auto: The Trilogy- Definitive Edition |
How is Elden Ring doing on Twitch?
The highly-awaited game was released globally for PC and consoles on February 25, 2022. Elden Ring was universally acclaimed on its release. During its debut on Twitch, Elden Ring drew almost 900,000 views within the first 24 hours of its release, placing itself as the third-largest debut of all time.
But how does the situation looks today? Currently, when it comes to streaming, Eldern Ring ranks as #59 of all streamed games. It has on average 4,660 weekly viewers across 322 channels on average. The peak happened on launch day, counting 910,225 viewers in total.
Elden Ring player count by device
SteamSpy has a rough estimate of over 10 million players who have purchased the game over at Steam for the PC. Meanwhile, there is no available data revealing the number of players on consoles. However, a report stated there are an estimated 567,158 players who are playing the game on consoles.
How many people have left Elden Ring
Eldern Ring lost much of its player base relatively soon after launch. The highest recorded loss was in April standing at -59.49%. To put it in more concrete terms, In April alone Elden Ring lost -310,597.5 players. The downward trend continued in the following months. Elden Ring keeps bleeding players and struggles to keep them interested.
Currently, in the last 30 days, Elden Ring lost -7.42% of active players when compared to the previous month’s data.
The trend is likely to continue unless some new content is added to the game.
How Much Money has Elden Ring Made?
According to the GamesRadar report from August of this year, Elden Ring has sold over 16 million across the globe. This means that so far Bandai Namco is 40.5 billion yen richer with an increase of 54.5% in total earnings when you compare it to the first quarter of the last year.
Elden Ring so far, almost managed to outsell the whole Dark Souls franchise, which currently stands at 27 million copies sold
What was George R.R. Martin’s contribution to Elden Ring?
One of the reasons why Elden Ring was such an anticipated game is because gamers and fans alike found out George R. R. Martin was brought on board to contribute to the game. According to the game’s director, Hidetaka Miyazaki, the author had several creative conversations regarding the game’s settings with him.
In the interview on the official Xbox blog, Miyazaki revealed that Martin’s input helped create the various characters in the game and the story of Elden Ring. Working with the A Song of Fire and Ice author proved to be an excellent experience for Miyazaki and his development staff.
Martin also took to his blog to celebrate the game’s release; however, he downplayed his role in the entire development. He told his blog readers that most of the credit belongs to Miyazaki and his team.
According to him, it was a big honor to be able to work with Miyazaki’s team when it came to creating the world’s setting and celebrated the game’s success for being a landmark megahit.
Some facts about Elden Ring development and release
A lot of thought, planning, and hard work was put into this game. The megahit game was developed by From Software and published by Bandai Namco Entertainment. Originally the game was only to be released for Microsft Windows, Play station 4, and the Xbox One.
However, in the June 2021 trailer, the developers announced the game would also be available on the PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X/S. The trailer also uncovered the supposed release date, which was January 21, 2022, but in October 2021, the release date got moved to February 25, 2022.
Hidetaka Miyazaki was a big fan of George R. R. Martin and invited him to give creative input for the game. Miyazaki took his conversations with Martin to create the game’s lore, describing the process as similar to consulting a Dungeon’s Master’s Handbook. Despite receiving creative consultancy, Miyazaki still wanted the game to be interpreted by the players.
Development of the game actually began as early as 2017 following the release of the Ringed City. Still sticking through with their Souls Series, the developers gave the players the ability to customize their own characters instead of giving them a fixed protagonist.
Miyazaki wanted to make Elden Ring a natural evolution to the Souls series, featuring possibilities such as open-world and new gameplay mechanics. However, Elden Ring’s open world works differently from most games with this feature. Instead of NPC-populated cities, the game offers more dungeon-like ruins.
The game draws several influences from other games such as Shadow of the Colossus, released in 2005, and The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wind. Miyazaki also brought back composer Yuka Kitamura, who worked as Miyazaki’s lead composer for his other games.
Elden Ring is a universally acclaimed game according to Metacritic and was at one moment the highest-reviewed game for 2022. The game scored perfectly to near-perfect scores on most review sites. While there are not a lot of reported bugs for consoles, PC players have submitted mixed reviews.
| Publication | Rating |
|---|---|
| IGN | 10/10 |
| Game Informer | 10/10 |
| NUMERAMA | 10/10 |
| Gaming Bible | 10/10 |
| PC Invasion | 10/10 |
| Well Played | 10/10 |
| WCCF Tech | 10/10 |
| The AU Review | 10/10 |
| SIXTHAXIS | 10/10 |
| God is a Geek | 10/10 |
| AniGame | 10/10 |
| Cultured Vulture | 10/10 |
| VG247 | 5/5 |
| GAMESRADAR | 5/5 |
| The Guardian | 5/5 |
| The Daily Star | 5/5 |
| Metacritic | 97/100 |
| OpenCritic | 96/100 |
| GAMESPEW | 10/10 |
| GAMEPUR | 10/10 |
| IGN UK | 10/10 |
| AREAJUGONES | 10/10 |
| PCGAMES | 10/10 |
| Gamespot | 10/10 |
| PC Games N | 10/10 |
| GamesMIx | 10/10 |
| Jeuxvideo.fr | 10/10 |
| Digitally Downloaded | 10/10 |
| Vandal | 10/10 |
| The Gamer | 5/5 |
| VGC | 5/5 |
| Windows Central | 5/5 |
| NME | 5/5 |
Accordingly, the PC version had several framerate issues, having stutters and weird slowdowns while playing. However, this did not hinder anyone from playing the game. Bandai Namco was quick to release a patch to address the issues.
Before the game was even released in any stores, the game had already won a number of awards. In 2020, the game was nominated for a Golden Joystick Award as the Most Wanted Game. While it did not get the title, it still managed to win The Game Award 2020 as the Most Anticipated Game.
A year before its release, it won both the Golden Joystick Award and The Game Award 2021 for the Most Wanted Game and Most Anticipated Game. So it’s really no wonder the numbers were so high during its release.
