Path of Exile has been available on Steam since autumn 2013, yet it continues to attract waves of players. Such a wave hit the servers again a few days ago – it was the largest that Path of Exile has ever recorded.
This is the record: More than 8 years after the original release, Path of Exile managed to draw more concurrent players at once than ever before: On Steam, on Friday, February 4, 2022, there were a total of 158,140 players simultaneously active at peak.
This surpassed the previous peak record for Path of Exile by a narrow margin: In January 2021, a little over a year ago, there were 157,091 players who were in the game at the same time on Steam.
In fact, the new record extends beyond Steam boundaries – at least according to the PoE developers at Grinding Gear Games: Cross-platform, a total of 270,260 players are said to have played Path of Exile at the same time (via pathofexile.com)
What is happening in Path of Exile?
How the record came about: The sudden increase in players, after seeing rather declining numbers over the past months from five digits to the higher four-digit range, can be explained by the new expansion “Siege of the Atlas”.
This was released on February 4 and caused numerous players to check back in. The developers speak of a “smooth release without incidents” that caught many players again. A pattern that has actually repeated several times in the past.
Path of Exile repeatedly manages to bring players back in waves around the new expansions, after which interest usually wanes again. However, the game has succeeded in this for several years – and such a high peak has never been reached before.
What is Path of Exile? Path of Exile is one of the most popular alternatives to Diablo. In this action RPG, looting and leveling up happens like in Diablo, with PoE standing out for its complexity and a harder difficulty level. Sometimes, however, the difficulty led to criticism.
In the new expansion, there are now contents like additional bosses, the new “Archnemesis league” with customizable challenges, and an extremely extensive skill tree.
Furthermore, a complete sequel to the game is also in development. However, the release of Path of Exile 2 will likely still take some time.
