Summary
Yesterday, July 19, saw the launch of two huge open betas.Concord, the arena shooter from Firewalk Studios, opened its servers to everybodyfollowing a mixed early access betalast week, and Amazon’s latest MMORPG,Throne and Libertydid the same.
However, while Concord’s mixed start continued, Throne and Liberty blew things out of the water.
A Difference In Fates
According to Steamcharts, a site that tracks concurrent Steam players, Concord’s beta opened with apeak of 2,363 players. This is fewer players than those who jumped onto 2016’s Titanfall 2at the same time, for what it’s worth. Compare that to the fortunes of Throne and Liberty, and things are poles apart, with the high-fantasy title’s betareaching almost 58,000 concurrent players.
Now, an argument can be made that things aren’t as bad for Concord as they seem. The open beta did launch on consoles, so the player base is likely to have been split, but then,so did Throne and Liberty’s. With that considered, numbers like this
Throne and Liberty
WHERE TO PLAY
Join the battle and immerse yourself in the exhilarating world of THRONE AND LIBERTY, a free-to-play game that revolves around guild-focused combat. Engage in thrilling battles against dozens to thousands of other players and fantastic creatures in group battles and massive Castle Sieges. Quick thinking and active decision-making are critical because every choice you make in the ever-changing world of Solisium carries weight and directly shapes your gameplay experience.THRONE AND LIBERTY captures the essence of classic MMORPGs while introducing new gameplay elements, adding depth and excitement at every turn. Choose your dual-weapon loadout to customize your approach on the battlefield, or morph into creatures of the land, water, and sky to traverse the vast and seamless world, or even take temporary control of a defeated boss to turn the tide of battle in your favor. Prepare for an unforgettable adventure where you’ll need to gather your guild, prepare for battle, and claim the throne.
must be a concern. If nobody is willing to check out the game when it’s free, how many are truly going to be willing to stretch to the $40 price tag the game currently has? Notably, this was something that wascommonly predictedafter the first beta.
Amazon’s MMORPG Success
Throne and Liberty’s early player numbers should probably come as no surprise. Amazon Games has previously found huge success with two of its titles that launched in a similar vein.
In 2021, the studio released New World, another MMORPG. At its peak, New World had a peak concurrent player count of over 913,000 players, putting it seventh in Steamcharts’top concurrent player charts of all time. A couple of short years before that, in 2019, Amazon Games helped to publish Lost Ark, an MMORPG from Korean studio Smilegate. Lost Ark peaked with more than 1.3 million concurrent players. This record, which was set in 2022 when the game launched worldwide, cemented the game as having thefourth-highest peak concurrent player countin Steam history.
With both games launching within a month of each other, Concord on August 23 and Throne and Liberty on September 17, it will be interesting to see if these numbers are an early indication of just how successful both games will be.
