After being in early access for more than a year, Supergiant Games’ first-ever sequel, Hades 2, was finally released on PC and Nintendo consoles last week. Since its predecessor was widely considered to be one of the greatest roguelikes ever made, expectations for the game were sky-high, but luckily, it seems that it hasn’t disappointed. At the time of writing this article, Hades 2 is the highest-rated game of the year on Metacritic, surpassing even the likes of Clair Obscur: Expedition 33, Blue Prince, and Hollow Knight: Silksong. What’s especially notable about the game’s success, though, is that it has reached a major milestone that the original Hades never did.
Having sold more than one million copies within three days of its 1.0 release, Hades was, without a doubt, a big commercial success for Supergiant Games. Despite this, though, it didn’t have as many players as you’d think. When the game first made its early access debut on Steam, after being an Epic Games Store exclusive for approximately one year, it only managed to accrue around 6,000 concurrent players. Although this wasn’t that surprising, considering that Hades wasn’t well-known at the time, its full release didn’t fare much better on Valve’s PC storefront, either. According to SteamDB, Hades had only 37,000 concurrent players a few days after its 1.0 launch, which was just a fraction of the Steam users that Hades 2 managed to attract during its own release periods.
Hades 2's Peak Player Count on Steam is Way Higher Compared to Hades 1's
Unlike Hades 1, Hades 2 Had a Really Successful Early Access Launch
Without any prior warnings, Supergiant Games launched Hades 2 into early access in May of last year. Even though the game didn’t have any proper marketing campaign at the time, its release immediately sparked the interest of many people in the Steam community. Hades 2 had an astounding 100,000 concurrent Steam players on the day after its early access release, quickly surpassing the original Hades‘ early access debut in this regard. Interestingly, at around the same time that this occurred, Hades itself also reached an all-time peak of 54,240 concurrent players on the same storefront. Hades 2‘s launch, it seems, gave fans an incentive to play the original game again.
Hades 2's 1.0 Launch Attracted Far More Players than Hades 1 Ever Did
While Hades 2‘s early access release was a hit, the game, unsurprisingly, achieved an even higher concurrent player count number upon its 1.0 debut. On September 25, the day that Hades 2 came out on PC, Nintendo Switch, and Nintendo Switch 2, it had over 84,000 players on Steam in particular. Then, only three days later, the game reached an all-time high of 112,947 players on Valve’s PC storefront. This, give or take, is three times the number of Steam users that concurrently played Hades in the month of its 1.0 release, and twice the number of people who played it in May 2024.
Like all the other major console manufacturers, Nintendo doesn’t publicly provide player count numbers for any of the games on its platform. Therefore, if one were to take into account the people who bought Hades 2 on Switch and Switch 2, the total number of concurrent players for the game would probably be a lot higher than 112,000.
Hades 1 and Hades 2's Steam Concurrent Player Counts Compared
|
Game |
Hades 1 |
Hades 2 |
|
# of Players on EA Release |
1,040 |
73,767 |
|
Date of EA Release |
Dec 10, 2019 |
May 6, 2024 |
|
Peak # of Players Within EA Release Month |
6,240 |
103,567 |
|
Date of Peak Player Count |
Dec 22, 2019 |
May 7, 2024 |
|
# of Players on Full Release |
11,495 |
84,419 |
|
Date of Full Release |
Sep 17, 2020 |
Sep 25, 2025 |
|
Peak # of Players Within Full Release Month |
37,749 |
112,947 |
|
Date of Peak Player Count |
Sep 27, 2020 |
Sep 28, 2025 |
|
# of All-Time Peak Players |
54,240 |
112,947 |
|
Date of All-Time Peak Player Count |
May 12, 2024 |
Sep 28, 2025 |
Hades 1 was originally released in early access on the Epic Games Store on December 6, 2018.
Despite Launching During a Very Competitive Period, Hades 2 Still Managed to Be a Hit
Hades 2‘s high player count numbers are made even more impressive by the fact that the game came out during a very competitive period. September was a pretty stacked month for video games; not just ones made by indie devs, but by AAA publishers, as well. On the same day that Hades 2 was released, Konami launched Silent Hill f, the first original mainline installment in the Silent Hill series in over a decade. Likewise, Sega released its long-awaited Mario Kart competitor, Sonic Racing: CrossWorlds, at the same time. Much like Hades 2, both games proved to be very popular, with Silent Hill f in particular selling more than 1 million copies in just 24 hours.
In addition to those two games, Hades 2 has also had to contend with Dying Light: The Beast, Borderlands 4, and the free-to-play Skate reboot, all of which came out within just a few days of the game’s full release. Although Hades 2 isn’t a completely flawless title, Supergiant Games deserves some respect for making a game that has successfully managed to stand toe-to-toe with these AAA juggernauts, despite being developed on a comparably small budget.