Valheim On-Track to be Fastest-Selling Game in Steam History

Some games take a while to catch on: Among Us, for example, had been out for two years before it suddenly burst into mainstream popularity, thanks largely to Twitch, and Fortnite was around for months before they released the Battle Royale mode that would eventually come to define it. Other games start popular but lose it almost instantly -- the fact that no one is talking about Cyberpunk 2077 is illustration enough of this kind of phenomenon.

Some games, though, either thanks to some amazing innovation or being born under a lucky star, explode out of the gate and just don't stop. And if Valheim, the Viking survival game that just released on Steam, is able to keep up its momentum, it could quickly become the fastest growing game in the platform's history.

We learned this via a post on Steam, which reads:
 

"We wanted to start by sharing a giant troll-sized thank you! In just 13 days Valheim has been purchased by over two million Vikings, and this weekend we reached a new peak concurrent player milestone of 360,000!

Forget longboats, we have now blown a 700+ year old record by boasting the largest Viking population in all of human history. For reference, the previous peak in Viking numbers was set in 1300 AD and was approximately 500,000.

Everyone at Iron Gate has really been appreciating all the messages, love, questions and thoughts from all of you, so please keep them coming! And again, a big thank you to all of you for helping us reach this ridiculous milestone in under two weeks of sailing onto Early Access."

For the record, the fastest-growing game in Steam's history was PUBG, which managed to hit 3 million players in about three months. If Valheim is able to get a million more people in the next few weeks, it'll be the new bar to beat for viral sensations.

But that's a pretty big if right now, given how fast attitudes change...