Conan Exiles is Back in Steam’s Top 10 Most Played Games After Almost Losing its Entire Player Base in Early Access

The early access debut of Conan Exiles was one of the most successful launches of 2017. Yet, after its first month, the hot new survival game saw a huge decline in its player base on Steam.

With a peak of 53k concurrent players that placed Conan as the #6 most played game on Steam at the time, everything seemed great for Funcom’s new open world multiplayer title back in February 2017.

But negative feedback from players told a different story. And by July 2017, it seemed that Exiles would be the latest in a long line of survival games that simply wouldn’t be able to survive on Steam with a peak of only 3k players left.

Conan Exiles’ Peak Concurrent Players on Steam via GitHyp

Most games that lose 95% of their players in such a short time span aren’t ever able to recover even half of their player base ever again – even when going free-to-play. Yet, last week’s official launch of Conan Exiles at $39.99 has almost completely revived the game with its population back to a peak of 49k concurrent players.

Conan’s successful comeback is due in large part to the developer’s commitment to improving the game. When it debuted on Steam, feedback from players was Mixed with many complaining that the $29.99 game was unplayable in its current state. Since coming out of early access last week with a $10 higher price tag, reviews from players have changed to Mostly Positive — placing it back in Steam’s top 10 most played.

Although players are still reporting numerous bugs (as is usually the case with most open world games), Conan Exiles’ time in early access has been time well spent and a great example of how to do early access right. The player base isn’t likely to explode like PUBG and Fornite, but it’s sure to retain players for a much longer period now that it’s off to a more stable second start.