PUBG about to hit 2m concurrent players

Everyone's favorite Battle Royale-inspired shooter... really is everyone's favorite, judging by the latest Steam charts, which indicate that PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds is about to crest the wave of two million concurrent players.

Over the weekend, the game reached 1,984,278 concurrent, which is near as dammit. The closest anyone's ever come to that was Valve's Dota 2, which reached 1,291,328 concurrent in early 2016. Counter-Strike: Global Offensive hit 850,485 around the same time, but nobody else has really come close. The next-best total was Fallout 4's 471,955 just after launch in 2015.

PUBG, as it's affectionately known, has sold over 13 million copies since it hit Steam Early Access in March, and an Xbox One version is due out by the end of the year, and Sony reportedly in talks about a PS4 version.

The game is already 'inspiring' a raft of pretenders, famously including Epic Games' Fortnite, which now includes a Battle Royale mode that borrows many of PUBG's core concepts. Bluehole wasn't too happy about that one.

Of course, the Battle Royale idea is nothing new - it's lifted from the novel and movie of the same name - but PUBG's individual approach is clearly the most potent cocktail yet.