The action RPG space has a new sheriff in town. Grinding Gear Games released Path of Exile 2 into early access at the start of this weekend. On Steam, the title has gone on to have a record-breaking half a million concurrent players just on Steam alone, more than doubling the numbers that were seen for the first installment. The surprising part is that the original is a free-to-play venture, while Path of Exile 2 currently has a $29.99 price tag as a starting point.
As with most big releases nowadays, launch day did not fare well for Grinding Gear Games, with hundreds of thousands of players being stuck on a login screen for hours as the studio battled with database issues in the backend. Things seem to be progressing well on that front, though, with almost everyone now being able to log in and jump into the dark fantasy world of Wraeclast.
On Steam, Path of Exile 2 reached its peak concurrent player count on Saturday, December 7, hitting 539,149 individual players in-game before slowly descending to bottom out at 280 thousand players. Already, the numbers are starting to rise again as players jump back into the game on Sunday.
Surprisingly, the $30 game even beat the likes of Marvel Rivals" weekend numbers on Steam, a free-to-play game with a massive fanbase and the Marvel name behind it. The shooter entry managed to get 451,018 Steam players on Saturday.
The only platform that shares live player numbers is Steam, so it"s still unknown how Path of Exile 2 has fared on Xbox Series X|S and PlayStation 5 console platforms. However, it"s clear that the game has easily sold multiple millions during its early access release weekend.
Other than the starting $29.99 price point, the studio also offers $59.99 and $99.99 supporter packs, which offer additional in-game currency, skins, and effects. Once out of the Early Access phase, which Grinding Gear says will take "as long as needed," the ARPG will be free-to-play, much like its predecessor.