PC Games having a record-breaking start to 2022

Dying Light 2 and MMO Lost Ark riding high on PC market boom

If SteamDB's data is accurate, then the PC market and particularly Steam, is enjoying healthy growth and frequently seeing new record numbers of concurrent players.

Steam has set two new records already this year, first reaching 28 million consecutive players on January 9th, before smashing that record with over 29 million consecutive players on January 23rd.

• Counter-Strike: Global Offensive, Dota 2 and PUBG dominate Steam
• 29,099,039 concurrent players on February 6th
• Wallpaper Engine tenth on most played chart

Sequels: Dying Light 2 is in sixth place on Steam's live chart of most played games, reaching a peak of 274,983 concurrent players after selling an estimated 2.36 million copies on PC.

MMOs: Smilegate’s free-to-play online action RPG Lost Ark is galloping towards official launch after amassing a peak concurrent player count of 532,476 during its alpha and beta phases, a record the game is expected to break soon.

DLCs: Crusader Kings 3 is also enjoying a surge of concurrent players following the launch of its latest DLC Royal Court, with the number of players spiking from around 20,000 a day to 63,229. DLC continues to play a vital role in bringing the player base back to IPs. 

Ports: Sony Santa Monica's much-anticipated PC release of God of War peaked at 73,529 concurrent players and has now settled at 10-15,000 average daily players. This is Sony's latest and most successful port on PC, beating Horizon Zero Dawn with its peak of 56,557 players. Uncharted: Legacy of Thieves Collection is up next, so we'll be watching to see how it performs on PC. 

F2Ps: Free-to-play Yu-Gi-Oh! Master Duel also arrived on Steam last month, and is just behind Dying Light 2 in the most played charts with peaks of around 150,000 concurrent players a day.

Notable upcoming PC releases

• This month: Total War: Warhammer 3 (February 17th), Elden Ring (February 28th)
• Next month: ELEX II (March 1st), Babylon's Fall (March 3rd), Persona 4 Arena Ultimax (March 17th), Ghostwire: Tokyo (March 25th), Tiny Tina's Wonderlands (March 25th), Death Stranding Director's Cut (March 30th), Weird West (March 31st).

What was the first game to feature real time 3D graphics?

a) Cube Quest
b) Tempest
c) I, Robot
d) Interstellar

The answer will be revealed at the bottom of today's issue. Join up with our community on Twitter and Facebook to discuss what the answer could be.

Hatching the World in Egglia: Rebirth

Many mobile games get ported to Switch for better or worse, but Egglia: Rebirth is a great conversion. It's an expanded version of Egglia: Legend of the Redcap featuring plenty of new content, making it the best way to enjoy the adventure.

Rebirthin’ the World: Your goal is to rebuild the world by discovering eggs that unlock more levels and a cast of colorful characters who will populate your town.

• The world is Egglia's greatest strength thanks to a charming art style and a strong localization executed with love and respect for the genre. It's quite silly, but never cringeworthy.

Roll the Dice, Slice some Foes: Egglia's levels are presented as a grid-based board game, and you must roll dice to progress through them while fighting monsters and collecting resources.

• Villagers from your town can also join you on these journeys to help you find more resources for rebuilding your home, as well as summoning spirits that allow you to cast elemental magic during battle.
• Summoning spirits requires a lot of resources, so you should be prepared to spend a lot of time with the spirits you start out with.

On the Clock: Egglia remains a mobile game at heart, and your party members need to recharge their stamina between excursions while buildings and items unlock based on timers.

• You can find items that speed up progress and recharge stamina, but the most natural way to play the game is to take a little break from it every now and then.

Mobile ports for Switch often feel slightly out of place, but Egglia: Rebirth is a charming and neat little role-playing game. If you're looking for a bright and bubbly RPG to keep you warm through the rest of the winter, Egglia: Rebirth has you covered.

Loads of announcements from Nintendo

Nintendo made a bucket load of announcements during the Nintendo Direct stream yesterday, with oodles of trailers for both first and third-party heavy hitters.

Judging by the line-up below, 2022 is going to be a great year for Switch owners.

• Nintendo Direct – 9th of February 2022

Out now

• Kingdom Hearts Integrum Masterpiece for Cloud
• GetsuFumaDen: Undying Moon

Coming soon

• Assassin's Creed: The Ezio Collection (February 17th)
• Triangle Strategy (March 4th)
• Mario Kart 8 Deluxe DLC (March 18th)
• Kirby and the Forgotten Land (March 25th)
• MLB The Show 22 (April 5th)
• Chrono Cross: The Radical Dreamers Edition (April 7th)
• Advance Wars 1+2: Re-Boot Camp (April 8th)
• Star Wars: The Force Unleashed (April 20th)
• Zombie Army 4: Dead War (April 26th)
• Nintendo Switch Sports (April 29th)
• Two Point Campus (May 17th)

Announcements and updates

• Lego Brawls (June),
• Mario Strikers: Battle League (June 10th)
• Demon Slayer -Kimetsu no Yaiba- The Hinokami Chronicles (June 10th)
• Fire Emblem Warriors: Three Hopes (June 24th)
• Cuphead: The Delicious Last Course (June 30th)
• Klonoa Phantasy Reverie Series (June 8th)
• Live A Live (July 22nd)
• Front Mission 1st: Remake (Summer)
• Front Mission 2: Remake (TBA)
• Disney Speedstorm (Summer)
• No Man's Sky (Summer)
• Splatoon 3 – Salmon Run Next Wave (Summer)
• Xenoblade Chronicles 3 (September)
• Portal: Companion Collection (2022)
• Taiko no Tatsujin: Rhythm Festival (2022)
• SD Gundam Battle Alliance (2022)

Another batch of IndieGala top sale picks

The deals can not and will not stop! This time you can explore your aristocratic side in Crusader Kings II: Royal Collection for £29.74 (-75%), or face the end of the world with The Daedalic Armageddon Bundle at £9.89 (-90%).

And that's not nearly all: Daedalic – Gigantic Bundle for £7.99 (-90%), Shadow Tactics: Blades of the Shogun at £3.49 (-90%), Ken Follett's The Pillars of the Earth at £2.69 (-90%), and Trine 4: The Nightmare Prince for £4.57 (-81%).

• Not everyone is thrilled about the wave of consolidation in the games industry as money and power becomes more concentrated and smaller companies struggle to compete
• Pokémon Legends: Arceus version 1.0.2 is now live and fixes a problem where you could catch certain Pokémon twice
• Pokémon Go Valentine’s Day event introduces Flabébé along with Floette and Florges
• The European Commission publishes the EU Chips Act, a big initiative aiming to help Europe compete in the semiconductor business
• Dark Souls online modes will return after Elden Ring launches, as the developers are working to ensure Elden Ring does not suffer the same problems

What was the first game to feature real time 3D graphics?

ANSWER: Cube Quest!

I, Robot is often credited with starting the 3D graphics revolution in arcade games, while others point to Tempest's vector graphics as an early example. However, both were predated by a more or less forgotten game called Cube Quest, which mixed pre-rendered graphics streamed from a laser disc with colorful, abstract 3d graphics.

It's an into-the-screen shooter with shooting and dodging sections as well as remarkably trippy visuals, so trippy that a lot of people think this is the actual origin of the Polybius urban legend. It's not that great a shoot'em-up, but it certainly looks unique and occupies a special place in arcade history.

Today's issue of DailyBits was written by Gavin Herman, Erlend Grefsrud, Simon Priest, and Jamie Davey. If you have any feedback or news tips for the team, please email us!