Polygon has a report out this afternoon sourcing data aggregator GitHyp, both of which are casting doubt on H1Z1’s future viability as a game and as a professional e-sport.
Daybreak-watchers will recall that last autumn, the MMO company dropped the King of the Kill branding from H1Z1 and the H1Z1 branding from Just Survive, splitting the two games up amidst a push for a China launch and a new pro league. In October 2017, we were already eyeing H1Z1’s falling playerbase numbers in comparison to PlayerUnknown’s Battleground’s meteoric rise – even at the time, H1Z1’s peak concurrency had fallen a full third since August.
That trend has unfortunately continued, according to GitHyp, which now says the game has lost 91% of its players since its July peak. Steam Charts suggests the drop-off is almost that bad too.
“During its best months, H1Z1: King of the Kill was holding strong as the #3 most played game on Steam with an all-time peak of 150k players and average of 86k players per hour,” the aggregator notes. “Today, you’ll find it struggling to crack the top 50 with less than 10k concurrent players most days and a peak of only 14k players so far this month.”
You’ll recall that neither of the games has yet to officially launch out of early access on PC; Daybreak aborted launch and indefinitely delayed a console port back in 2016. The game never went free-to-play, either, meaning it’s seeing stiff competition from not just PUBG but Fortnite.
