Konami's new Yu-Gi-Oh Master Duel has surpassed 250,000 unique players online at the same time!

According to data taken directly from Steam, and displayed by SteamDB, Master Duel has hit the top 4 globally on the platform, only being beat by Valve's own Counter-Strike Global Offensive, DotA 2, and KRAFTON's PUBG: Battlegrounds.


Master Duels concurrent player count since launch. Peak is 255,207 players.

This is quite a successful launch for the title which brings in over 20 Years of Yu-Gi-Oh goodness into one singular, modern title that is available cross platform - so these numbers are certainly much higher.


How Are the Reviews Doing?

So far, we've seen 8,117 reviews on Steam for Master Duel, with 6,004 of those reviews being marked as positive. That's a 73.96% positive review rate!

Interesting fact: 9 reviewers so far have over 40 hours in the game. Is it that good or are they idling?

That's not to say all positive reviews are truly positive - though Steam reviews usually have a bit of joking around in them. There has been some frustration when players are able to pull off long combinations of cards which forces you to sit idle, which Shin Ryujin calls out in their review.

Quote From Shin Ryujin

If you are willing to spend half of your lifetime waiting for your opponent to finish a combo that summons a monster that ends the game in 1 attack, then this game is for you.

Though Tropic swoops on in and shows that the previous iteration of a Yu-Gi-Oh game, Duel Links, has now been replaced by Master Duel for them.

Quote From Tropic

Uninstalled Duel Links

Xiroc.C.A.P gave a more in-depth review citing it as being the best video game works of Yu-Gi-Oh in recent years and remains optimistic even if new players learning the rules is quite an undertaking.

Quote From Xiroc.C.A.P

8/10
As a Duel Links former player and a fan of the Yu-Gi-Oh card game, I came to the following conclusion after a brief experience. I hope my opinion helps those who are still on the sidelines.

It can be said that this game is one of the best video game works of Yu-Gi-Oh's physical card in recent years. Unlike Duel Links, which focuses on fast-paced combat and nostalgia for anime plots, just like its name, the game's duel rules are the orthodox ocg-rules, which can be said to be one of the most complicated rules in card games. A large number of cards, a wide variety of rules, all flowers are in bloom decks, unexpected situations, and reversal of life after death, are the biggest charms of Yu-Gi-Oh.

At present, the music, scene design, and animation effects of the game are still quite satisfactory. At the same time, new players can build their own deck at a very low cost, which is crucial to the player experience for a card game. The only shortcoming at present is that the cost of building a second deck after building the first deck is relatively high (except for some general-purpose cards). The characteristics of the game are also doomed to the existence of tiered decks. At present, the dominance of mainstream decks over the environment is still unshakable. Let us look forward to how Konami will coordinate and balance in the future.

Overall, I'm still optimistic about this game right now. For those new players, the learning cost of ocg-rules is too high, and new players may need a long transition period, and the Duel Link is still suitable for players who like Yu-Gi-Oh's animation and want to have a simple duel.


Beating Artifact

Artifact, which was officially considered a dead game by Valve a little less than a year ago, never saw the success that Master Duel has. Peaking very briefly at 60,646 Concurrent players on launch, a quarter of what Master Duel has accomplished in the less than 4 days it has been active, Artifact never saw much play at all.

Don't mind the high Twitch viewer counts - that's just people streaming movies and television shows in the category since Twitch won't do anything until they receive a DMCA takedown request.


Other Card Games vs Yu-Gi-Oh Master Duel

GWENT: The Witcher Card Game which saw its release back in 2017, though only recently joining Steam in 2020, capped out at 7,504 concurrent players on Steam. It should be noted though you can also play this game through the GoG Galaxy Launcher, so numbers aren't very accurate but they still tell the story that GWENT has never been very large.


A peak into not much else.

Mythgard which launched towards the end of 2019 peaked at 490 concurrent players. It goes to show how difficult it can be to break into the space - though Yu-Gi-Oh certainly has those years of existence to power interest by players of the past and present. Rhino Games ultimate went into maintenance mode with the game and then passed it off onto Monumental just over 3 months ago.


The interest from Twitch never drove game downloads.

Shadowverse's past 5 years on Steam shows a different story. A dedicated playerbase that, much like Hearthstone, sees players return for content updates in peaks and then settling back into comfort. It has seen a peak of 24,167 players, which happened 5 years ago.

Yu-Gi-Oh Duel Links hit a peak of 21,520. That was in the lead-up to Master Duel happening 4 months ago.

It's safe to say that Yu-Gi-Oh is rocking the genre right now.


If you want to check out Yu-Gi-Oh Master Duel, it is available to play right now on Steam, Xbox, PlayStation, and Switch for free! iOS and Android apps are coming at a later date.

Have you been playing Yu-Gi-Oh Master Duel? What are your thoughts on the game?