New World is Already Steam's Most Played Game of 2021 Despite Server Struggles

New World is already Steam's most-played game of 2021, even though it's only been out for a day.

Not only is Amazon Games' new MMO the most played game of 2021, but its all-time player count peak is also more than 200,000 players higher than Valheim’s, which previously held the record.

At the time of this writing, New World has 684,364 concurrent players and an all-time peak of 707,230, which it hit about half an hour ago. Valheim, which was released earlier this year to much acclaim, previously held the record as the most played game on Steam this year with an all-time peak of 502,387.

Over on Twitch, 947,000 viewers are watching New World streams. Perhaps those viewers are watching the game because it's really hard to play the game right now due to its ongoing launch day server stress. As noted by analyst Simon Carless on Twitter, about 400,000 players are waiting to log into the game's EU servers — that doesn't even take into account the players looking to jump into other regional servers.

A quick scroll through the New World subreddit reveals similar queue lengths, too. There, players are easing the server pain by making memes.

Now we’re playing an MMO pic.twitter.com/ilDB2pio2s

— Mama Vitelli (@jessevitelli) September 28, 2021

As you can see in the tweet above, the server queue numbers are nothing to scoff at — we're talking hundreds and hundreds of players in line to play New World. The official New World Twitter account addressed these massive queues, first thanking players before talking about how the team is going to address these long queue times.

"It has been an unbelievable 24 hours and the support for New World that we've seen so far has been incredible," the New World post reads. "We understand that some players are experiencing lengthy queue times and we are working hard on a few things to help address these issues."

Read an update regarding New World Launch #NWstatus

📍 https://t.co/KklxZUYlzf pic.twitter.com/5czKf72Tbw

— New World (@playnewworld) September 28, 2021

The team is working to create additional servers and expand the capacities of those already set up. Their sole focus at the moment is to get everyone logged in and playing, according to the post. To allow players into the game without the worry of picking a server they don't want to be on, New World will allow players to relocate their characters to a new server of their choice for free in the next two weeks, too.

For more about New World, check out this breakdown of the game's post-launch plans and then read up on how to group up with friends in the game. Check out this video explaining how to farm and use Azoth after that.

Wesley LeBlanc is a freelance news writer and guide maker for IGN. You can follow him on Twitter @LeBlancWes.

source https://www.ign.com/articles/amazon-games-new-world-mmo-steam-2021-most-played