For Honor is shedding players, down 95% since launch according to Steam stats

For Honor is looking very poorly after coming down with a serious case of not having many players. Ubisoft’s multiplayer game of duelling warriors has shed around 95 percent of its playerbase on Steam in just a few months.

At launch, For Honor boasted 45k concurrent players, down from over 71k during the beta. Since then, it’s largely been a downward trend that even Season 2, with its new maps and heroes, couldn’t halt.

After the launch of Shadow and Might, there was a tiny jump, according to analytics site, Githyp, with almost 5k concurrent users, but that figure has dwindled again, back to pre-DLC numbers. As of last weekend, it’s peaking at a miserable 3.4k. Steamspy confirms the situation, showing that peak concurrent users were down to 3.1k yesterday.

This is just on Steam, so it doesn’t include anyone playing directly from Ubisoft’s Uplay platform, but it’s rather telling, regardless.

It’s a shame. In his For Honor review, Andy called it a “tense, tactical medieval brawler that will reward anyone with the patience and will to master it,” and that’s been my experience, too. It is blessed with a cracking combat system and heroes that feel meaty, with weapons that are almost tangible.

What do you reckon Ubisoft needs to do to seduce players back to the arenas?

Fraser is the UK online editor and has actually met The Internet in person. With over a decade of experience, he's been around the block a few times, serving as a freelancer, news editor and prolific reviewer. Strategy games have been a 30-year-long obsession, from tiny RTSs to sprawling political sims, and he never turns down the chance to rave about Total War or Crusader Kings. He's also been known to set up shop in the latest MMO and likes to wind down with an endlessly deep, systemic RPG. These days, when he's not editing, he can usually be found writing features that are 1,000 words too long or talking about his dog.