The long-awaited Back 4 Blood launched this week and is currently keeping a lot of gamers busy as they gun their way through hordes of the Ridden, and trying to survive the apocalypse. With the Left 4 Dead spiritual successor receiving pretty good reviews, it seems as though many have been keen to get their teeth into this, given that the Valve zombie shooters from several years ago have been laying dormant since. Unsurprisingly, then, it seems as though B4B has managed to surpass at least one of its ancestors in terms of player count.
According to Steam DB, which is a website that monitors player and game statistics, as well as announces rumors about upcoming Steam sales, Turtle Rock Studios' Back 4 Blood is doing remarkably well, with a concurrent player count on Steam peaking at 53,327 as of this article going live. That number seems to be going up as the days move on, but it has already smashed the all-time peak count for Left 4 Dead, which achieved 30,616 in total around 13 years ago. This means Back 4 Blood could almost double its predecessor's peak within a short span of time.
However, it hasn't managed to pass the Left 4 Dead sequel, which came out in 2009. While Back 4 Blood is sitting mightily pretty at more than 50,000 concurrent Steam players, L4D2's all-time peak was a whopping 162,300 which it achieved in 2013. That being said, the reason it managed to achieve such a high result is because Valve have the game away for free on Christmas Day in 2013, which is most likely why it peaked at that point. That's not to snub B4B's achievement, but it does have some way to go before it can top 160,000 or more.
With this game and others being added to Xbox Game Pass, it's likely that the player count for Back 4 Blood will only increase. With thousands of players currently locked and loaded into the game, there's no telling how high that number will climb over the next few days or weeks, especially with Halloween coming which will likely entice more players, as well as people streaming the game live.
Back 4 Blood's successful beta essentially foreshadowed how successful the full release was going to be. While the reviews are not overwhelmingly positive, it's safe to say that it's a worthy follow-up to the Left 4 Dead games, and encapsulates that zombie-shooting violence that many gamers still crave.
Back 4 Blood is available now for PC, PS4, PS5, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X
Source: Steam DB (Back 4 Blood), Steam DB, (Left 4 Dead), Steam DB (Left 4 Dead 2)