Stunlock Studio's vampire base survival game V Rising is proving to be an instant hit after leaving Steam Early Access on May 8. It has now beaten out another indie hit, Hades 2, to become one of Steam's most-played titles based on concurrent player count.

V Rising’s 1.0 update introduced subtle yet substantial changes to the game’s core mechanics and visuals, with numerous quality of life improvements alongside tons of new content. The update introduced a new region, Ruins of Mortium, to its already sprawling world, with new bosses, enemies, and rewards to obtain. The full patch notes contain far more than can be crammed into a few paragraphs, and have been hugely successful in attracting new waves of players and elevating themselves to high status on the Steam charts.

The game broke into Steam’s top 10 charts with 98,000 concurrent players, which is nearly 20 times the average player count. To put that in perspective, V Rising typically peaks at around 5,000 players on a good day, according to SteamDB. While it did see a big spike when the 2023 update, Gloomrot, came out, it wasn’t anywhere near the 1.0 figures. The game’s full release, however, is still trailing its launch highs, which saw over 150,000 players log in to enjoy some good old-fashioned vampire fun.

V Rising launched in Steam Early Access almost two years ago, and has seen numerous small updates to the core gameplay over the years. It has only had two major updates, Gloomrot and the 1.0 release, and is Stunlock’s biggest game to date. They previously tried their hand at the MOBA genre with Battlerite, many of whose mechanics, most notably camera movement, are prominently featured in V Rising.