Hogwarts Legacy Has One of Steam’s Biggest Early Access Launches

Hogwarts Legacy has had one of the biggest early access launches in Steam history for a paid, single player game.

As spotted by VGC, analyst Benji-Sales tweeted that Avalanche Software’s wizarding RPG has already achieved an all time concurrent player peak of 474,144, which has since risen by over 15,000 to 489,139.

Benji-Sales noted that the pre-launch figure represents the second highest player peak for any paid, single player game in the history of the Steam platform according to SteamDB.

Hogwarts Legacy Early Access has passed the All-Time Steam Peak of Fallout 4

Hogwarts Legacy is now the #2 highest peak in history for a paid single-player only game (Elden Ring has multiplayer) only behind Cyberpunk 2077

Peak
• Hogwarts Legacy: 474,144+

• Fallout 4: 472,962 pic.twitter.com/HFOEiFFCup— Benji-Sales (@BenjiSales) February 8, 2023

The success bumped Fallout 4‘s concurrent player record of 472,962 down into third place, with Hogwarts Legacy now trailing just Cyberpunk 2077, which despite its rocky launch was able to achieve a staggering concurrent player count of 1,054,388.

The early access period comes ahead of Hogwarts Legacy’s full launch on February 10, and so only takes into account players who gained early access by ordering the Deluxe Edition of the open world RPG.

Hogwarts Legacy also became the #1 single-player game ever on Twitch with 1.28 million peak concurrent viewers, according to a post on the game’s Twitter account.

Its performance comes as proof that excitement around the game has been building for a long time, perhaps growing further following Hogwarts Legacy’s positive critical reception.

It’s development hasn’t been without controversy, however, as Harry Potter author J.K. Rowling has been criticised for having anti-transgender views, with some fans threatening to boycott the game in the face of the controversy.

Game director Alan Trew recently laid out his inclusive approach to the game’s development and its audience though, and a transgender character features in Hogwarts Legacy.

“We know our fans fell in love with the Wizarding World, and we believe they fell in love with it for the right reasons,” Trew said. “We know that’s a diverse audience. For us, it’s making sure that the audience, who always dreamed of having this game, had the opportunity to feel welcomed back. That they have a home here and that it’s a good place to tell their story.”

In IGN’s 9/10 review we said that Hogwarts Legacy is able to capture “all the excitement and wonder of the Wizarding World” while delivering “memorable new characters, challenging and nuanced combat, and a wonderfully executed Hogwarts student fantasy”.

Anthony is a freelance contributor covering science and video gaming news for IGN. He has over eight years experience of covering breaking developments in multiple scientific fields and absolutely no time for your shenanigans. Follow him on Twitter @BeardConGamer