Today is the day that Fallout 4 is finally upon us. You very likely already know this, because you are probably playing it right now. I'm not, of course. I'm writing the news. News that virtually nobody will read, because everyone is out running around and having fun in the Commonwealth wasteland. Everyone but me, that is. So lonely.
And how do I know this, you wonder? Because, as the Steam and Game Stats page reveals, Fallout 4 hit a peak of 446,000 concurrent players today, and that's a new record, handily smacking down the previous mark set by Grand Theft Auto 5, which peaked at 361,000 in April. For an added bit of fun, note that GTA 5 took the crown from Skyrim, Bethesda's previous game, which rang up 280,000 concurrent players in its first day. That's quite a progression.
A couple of points to note: First, according to Polygon it took three days for Grand Theft Auto 5 to hit its peak concurrent user count. And second, as we mentioned in our GTA report, the record applies only to non-Valve games, and continues to be dwarfed by them. Even so, it's undeniably impressive, and all the more so given that, as noticed by NeoGAF and captured below, Fallout 4 actually surpassed Dota 2 at one point today, and may well do the same to Counter-Strike: Global Offensive. It's still a long way from their peak numbers—Dota 2 topped out at 766,000 today—but it's a heck of a start.
Update: Literally seconds after we published this story, the Game Stats page updated to indicate that Fallout 4 had in fact slipped past CS:GO to claim the top spot. It's still a long way off the peak numbers, but right here and right now, it's number one.
