Slay the Spire 2 dev compared it to unexciting 'chicken noodle soup' before its extraordinary launch, but it turns out people really, really like their soup

Slay the Spire 2 released in early access on Thursday, and as beloved as the original Slay the Spire is, I'm not sure anyone expected there to be quite this much love for the sequel.

At the time of writing, Slay the Spire 2 has hit a peak of 430,456 concurrent Steam players and is #1 on the global top sellers list, even as Bungie shooter Marathon sees its first week in action.

Developer Mega Crit itself has seemed surprised by the enormity of the response. Last year, our council of gaming luminaries named Slay the Spire 2 our most wanted upcoming game. Speaking to PC Gamer at the time, Mega Crit co-founder Casey Yano downplayed the studio's expectations, saying it was a "surprise" to be at the top of the list.

"Voted number one is an honour and a surprise," Yano said. "I feel like Slay the Spire is the chicken noodle soup of videogames. It's not exciting, but I hope people like our soup."

On Slay the Spire 2's launch day this week, Mega Crit joked that its fans shouldn't let "small indie passion projects" like Marathon pass them by, but the deckbuilder has in fact massively outperformed Bungie's brand new extraction shooter on Steam.

Which isn't to kick sand at Marathon, a PvP-focused shooter that we like so far, and which is also available on consoles. It's launching against stiff competition from more mainstream, PvE-oriented games Arc Raiders and Helldivers 2, as well as a resurgent Overwatch, and other popular shooters like Marvel Rivals and Rainbow Six Siege.

Mega Crit also joked this week that Slay the Spire 2's early concurrent players peak was a "92,982% increase" over Slay the Spire 1's, "meaning StS3 is on track to hit 166,861,777 concurrent players by 2035."

Anything could happen. I've only had a few spoonfuls so far, but it's good soup.