Path of Exile player count peaked with new expansion

With the release of the latest Path of Exile expansion, Echoes of the Atlas, the game’s player count reached an all-time high on Steam.

In the game’s 8 year history, a new record was set on Steam, with 157,103 players playing the game on Steam on January 16th 2021. Considering that Path of Exile has its own client outside of Steam, the total number of players might be even higher. Besides that, viewership on Twitch also peaked, with more than 230,000 viewers watching streamers play the game live.

Echoes of the Atlas launched on 15th January 2021 on PC. Console players have yet to try out the new expansion, as they will only get it on 20th January 2021.

In addition, there were so many players online that the game ran into server issues. According to a post by a moderator on the Path of Exile forums:

For the last six or so hours, we’ve been having some quite bad server issues. This manifests in several ways: some players getting disconnected from time to time, various actions serverside timing out, and rarely, items being duplicated or destroyed. This news post explains what we know about the situation and our timelines for fixing it.

This release has seen 11% higher peak player numbers than any previous Path of Exile release, and that would likely be even higher without the server issues. While this would normally be something to celebrate, right now it’s causing some big server problems.

We hope that Path of Exile will run smoother once the new expansion hits consoles.

Path of Exile

Publisher: Grinding Gear Games

Developer: Grinding Gear Games

Release Date: 2013-10-13

mac os, Microsoft Windows, PlayStation 4, Steam, Xbox One

You are an Exile, struggling to survive on the dark continent of Wraeclast, as you fight to earn power that will allow you to exact your revenge against those who wronged you. Created by hardcore gamers, Path of Exile is an online Action RPG set in a dark fantasy world.