‘Stray’ is Annapurna Interactive’s biggest PC launch

After launching yesterday (July 19), Stray has broken the concurrent player record for any Annapurna Interactive game on Steam ever, meaning it’s the studio’s biggest PC launch of all time.

Prior to Stray’s release, the most popular Annapurna Interactive game at any one moment was Twelve Minutes, with 8,021 concurrent players. This was followed by Outer Wilds with 7,936, Neon White with 3,277 and Journey with 1,757. Stray has taken the record and then some, seeing a massive 62,963 players in the game at the same time on its release day.

Analyst Benji-Sales highlighted how Stray had 50,555 players in-game at the time, and that number only went on to increase as time went on according to Steam Stats. It remains to be seen how sales of the game have performed, but if player reviews are anything to go by this could be Annapurna Interactive’s most successful game yet.

Developed by BlueTwelve Studio, Stray has been leaving record-breaking stats in its wake after topping the Wishlist chart at the start of the month, knocking survival horror game The Day Before from the top spot.

In our review we said, “Stray gets a lot of things right. The game’s dystopian dioramas are teeming with memorable cat crannies. Environments burst with colour and life, from busy bars and hat shops to programmer’s nests. Through its art direction, Stray really works its way into your imagination as you try and divine what the world looks like outside of the Walled City that you’ve been thrust into.”

It seems that Steam players are in agreement that Stray is truly beautiful, with the game having received over 9,400 reviews at the time of writing, and almost 8,750 of those being “overwhelmingly positive.”

In other news, Ubisoft employees have addressed why developers avoid communicating with fans where possible, especially around the launch of a new title.