The First Playercount Numbers For The ‘Avowed’ Launch Are In – Forbes
AvowedI remain somewhat confused about the pushback to reporting on playercount numbers, as they often paint very clear pictures of enormous hits (Helldivers 2, Marvel Rivals) or disastrous misses (Suicide Squad, Concord), even if console platform figures are unknown, and we’re just going on Steam data. Trends there indicate trends elsewhere, most of the time.Admittedly, Avowed is more complicated. This is a game that yes, is launching on Steam, but also Xbox Game Pass with cross-purchase on Battlenet. So it stands to reason that Steam numbers would be less than they would be otherwise. However, given that this is Xbox we’re talking about with less consoles sold than PS5, where Avowed hasn’t launched, and only a portion of Game Pass’s 34 million subscribers have access to day one launches, it may not be quite as huge a disparity some think.What we can do is compare the Avowed launch to other, similar games that did also launch on Game Pass at the same time, keeping in mind that Avowed is a smaller-scale game that’s a new IP for most (in effect, even if it’s based on Pillars of Eternity).AvowedOn launch day, yesterday, Tuesday, February 18, Avowed peaked at 17,171 players on Steam, while in fact being the highest selling game on the platform for a time. This is 4,000 or so higher than the previous peak, which occurred during early access of 13,338. The weekend is coming up, which should increase things further. Using the jump from a 9,000 launch to a 13,000 peak in Early Access on the weekend, we can maybe estimate it reaches 22-23,000 or so.The most recent comparison would be Indiana Jones and the Great Circle, which peaked lower at 12,138 concurrent players at launch, despite being a well-known IP and with much-liked studio behind it. Then, of course, there are much higher-profile games where Avowed is only putting up a fraction of those numbers. Starfield, with a 330,723 peak, and Halo Infinite with a 272,586 peak. Forza Horizon 5 peaked at 81,096. Way back in the day, Obsidian’s far more comparable The Outer Worlds peaked at 20,349.There are other RPGs to compare it to, albeit no, no Game Pass launch, but for something like Dragon Age: The Veilguard, it released wide on PC, Xbox and 75 million PS5s. That peaked at 89,418 on Steam. Recent surprise, hardcore RPG hit Kingdom Come Deliverance II maxed out at 256,206 players.Dragon Age: The VeilguardIs Avowed underperforming? Overperforming? The problem with Microsoft is we just have no real idea what they consider a hit unless they start bragging about it. But even when they do, it doesn’t say too much. They said Starfield had the most players at launch of any Bethesda game. But again it was…free with Game Pass.I think Microsoft believes in Obsidian. I mean, they had them make both this game and The Outer Worlds 2, also out this year, and I think they recognize that it’s one of their most solid studio purchases, able to make quality games with budgets not on the scale of some of their biggest, perhaps overly big, blockbusters.Given that Avowed will essentially be the biggest pure Xbox exclusive of this year (I don’t buy Fable is coming out in 2025), I think this may be a bit of an underperformance in terms of players and also review scores, but not enough to be “bad” and I think Obsidian and their future projects will be fine from here.Follow me on Twitter, YouTube, Bluesky and Instagram.Pick up my sci-fi novels the Herokiller series and The Earthborn Trilogy.
