Cyberpunk 2077 is the biggest PC launch in history

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By Rich Stanton
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WoW: Shadowlands held the record for a few days.

Cyberpunk 2077
(Image credit: CD Projekt Red)

Not everything is going right with the launch of Cyberpunk 2077, but the sales couldn't be better. CD Projekt Red maintains an investor-focused account that has been sharing some stats about the game's launch which, broken down, show the open-world project has had the biggest launch day in PC gaming history, sailing over the recent high bar of 3.7 million set by World of Warcraft: Shadowlands.

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The game was pre-ordered by an astonishing 8 million people, which the CDPR investor relations account went on to divide by platform.

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59% of 8 million is 4.72 million copies, so CP 2077 is over a million units ahead of Shadowlands even before the purchases made on day one itself. Once those figures are available we'll update the total.

Obviously this comparison isn't apples to oranges, but it's particularly striking that CDPR has achieved Cyberpunk's debut videogame. A chunk of that success is just down to marketing, of course, but it also shows the size of the audience that CDPR has built over its Witcher games.

Cyberpunk 2077 had over a million concurrent Steam players on launch day. Our review found a lot to love in CDPR's vision of the future, but a hell of a lot of bugs taint the experience. If you have the right rig for it the game runs a lot smoother, but for many the recommended spec of a 1060 doesn't seem to be enough. 

Rich Stanton
Rich Stanton

Rich is a games journalist with 15 years' experience, beginning his career on Edge magazine before working for a wide range of outlets, including Ars Technica, Eurogamer, GamesRadar+, Gamespot, the Guardian, IGN, the New Statesman, Polygon, and Vice. He was the editor of Kotaku UK, the UK arm of Kotaku, for three years before joining PC Gamer. He is the author of a Brief History of Video Games, a full history of the medium, which the Midwest Book Review described as "[a] must-read for serious minded game historians and curious video game connoisseurs alike."

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