It felt like there hadn't been a big MMO launch for a long time until this summer, when between Crowfall, Swords of Legends Online, and Amazon's New World, MMOs suddenly abounded. But of the three, New World seems to be the most popular, judging by the 190,000 players who jumped into the closed beta en masse yesterday.

According to SteamDB, New World has 190,811 concurrent players at its peak and just over 160,000 players at present. This is enough to make New World the fourth largest game on Steam, ahead of Grand Theft Auto 5 and Apex Legends. It is also overwhelmingly popular on Twitch, where it is currently the second most popular game with just over 300,000 viewers.

However, there are some caveats to these numbers. Currently, access to the closed beta is only available to those who pre-ordered the game, but since the beta and the actual game are listed separately on Steam, it is possible that some players pre-ordered the game just to access the beta and have refunded their purchases. There will also be many players who jumped in without paying, either through giveaways or because they already had access from previous tests. It will be interesting to see how the closed beta numbers compare to the actual launch on August 31.

Still, New World looks to be the blockbuster MMO of the summer. Incidentally, Sword of Legend Online reportedly sold 200,000 copies in its first week of launch. It's a pretty good MMO if you can stomach the tedious and repetitive leveling process.

As for New World, a lot has changed since it was first announced. Tyler played it in May and said it has become a more orthodox MMO than the early PvP keep defense battles would suggest. He will be back next week with his latest impressions.

If you plan to participate in the closed beta of New World (which you can access by pre-ordering on Steam), be aware that users with EVGA's RTX 3090 have reported their cards bricking while playing. There does not seem to be a clear consensus on what is happening and why, but it is something to be aware of.

The closed beta for New World ends August 2, and the full game will be released on August 31.