Monster Hunter Wilds has broken into the top 10 all-time Steam record books an hour after launch, passing Baldur's Gate 3, Hogwarts Legacy and Elden Ring

(Image credit: Capcom)

Short of a catastrophic server meltdown, it was almost inevitable Monster Hunter Wilds would smash its way into the Steam record books. But I didn't think it would happen this fast.

As of 10:05 pm Pacific on launch day, Wilds has snatched a spot among the most-played games on Steam, surpassing the all-time peak player records of Baldur's Gate 3 (875,343), Hogwarts Legacy (879,308) and New World (913, 634) to take the #10 spot. As of this writing, 920,464 hunters are online beating up their first Chatacabra (or, more likely, messing around in the character creator).

Update: As of 10:20 pm, Wilds moved up to the #8 spot, passing Elden Ring's 953,426. Cyberpunk 2077 is up next, but it's going to take another 100,000 players to pass it.

How much higher will that player count go to go this weekend? We'll be keeping tabs.

Follow along with our live coverage for the latest on Monster Hunter Wilds' launch.

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Wes has been covering games and hardware for more than 10 years, first at tech sites like The Wirecutter and Tested before joining the PC Gamer team in 2014. Wes plays a little bit of everything, but he'll always jump at the chance to cover emulation and Japanese games.

When he's not obsessively optimizing and re-optimizing a tangle of conveyor belts in Satisfactory (it's really becoming a problem), he's probably playing a 20-year-old Final Fantasy or some opaque ASCII roguelike. With a focus on writing and editing features, he seeks out personal stories and in-depth histories from the corners of PC gaming and its niche communities. 50% pizza by volume (deep dish, to be specific).