Almost a year after it first launched for PS5, Death Stranding 2: On the Beach has landed on PC, and so far, it’s doing pretty well. At the time of writing, the game has reached 55,444 concurrent players on Steam, surpassing the peak player counts of the first game (32,515) and its Director’s Cut edition (22,080).
That figure also puts it ahead of several other PC ports of games from PlayStation Studios, such as Marvel’s Spider-Man; Miles Morales (13,539), Marvel’s Spider-Man 2 (28,189), The Last of Us Part 1 (36,496), and The Last of Us Part 2 (30,690). Currently, Helldivers 2 holds the record for the highest CCU amongst PlayStation PC ports on Steam, at 458,079 concurrent players. One thing to point out here is that while player CCU is important, ultimately, that single data point isn’t meaningful in measuring the overall success of a single-player game.
The number may rise even further, as the first weekend of a new game launch is usually responsible for its best performance. It’s an impressive start for the game, as it’ll be sharing the weekend with Crimson Desert. The Pearl Abyss-developed action-RPG is already off to a strong start, with 2 million sales, and a peak player count–so far–of 239,045.
Death Stranding 2’s opening weekend performance comes at a time when Sony is reportedly reconsidering plans to port its PS5 games to PC. Several PlayStation games might not have reached Sony’s sales expectations on PC–perhaps due in part to Sony’s inconsistent release schedule–and a recent report claimed that Microsoft’s next Xbox, Project Helix, has also played a part in the company pivoting back to console exclusives. Reportedly, Sony executives weren’t keen about seeing its flagship games running on a new PC-like Xbox, as it will support multiple storefronts.
It’s worth noting that Death Stranding 2 is in a unique position. Death Stranding 2 was published by Sony, but developer Kojima Productions is an independent, privately held studio. Founded by Hideo Kojima in 2015, its first game, Death Stranding, was a timed exclusive for PS4 when it first launched in November 2019, with a PC port arriving in July 2020. The Director’s Cut would follow in 2021, and the game eventually came to Xbox Series X|S in 2024.
Beyond its work on the Death Stranding games, live-action movie, credit cards, and anime projects, Kojima Productions also has several more projects in various stages of development. Its horror title OD was revealed several years ago, and Physint is a spiritual successor to Kojima’s Metal Gear Solid franchise.
