Loop Hero Is Becoming a Breakout Success on Steam

Early 2021 has had a gap of major AAA game releases, a rarity in the past decade. In place of major releases, indie games like Valheim, Tale of Immortal, Dyson Sphere Program, and Rust have filled in instead. Now another game can be added to the list of impressively successful indie launches for 2021. Loop Hero, the unique roguelite mix of automated RPG combat, deckbuilding, and meta progression, is the latest breakout success on Steam.

By three key metrics is Loop Hero's wild success now apparent, despite launching just this past Thursday. Perhaps the most important is Steam Database's key Trending Games metric, where Loop Hero tops this list. The Trending Games metric takes into account overall players over the past week, total concurrent players, ratings, sales, and more. It's a great way to see what games are surging in popularity, and Loop Hero puts the rest of the list to shame.

The second key metric is a part of the Trending Games list, but taken into account on its own: total concurrent players on Steam, one of the few statistics that Valve provides regarding games on Steam. Not only is Loop Hero seeing peak concurrent players over 50,000, but that total has climbed every day since launch. March 4 was over 30,000, March 5 was over 35,000, March 6 jumped to over 45,000, and as of this writing it's over 50,000.

The third metric to take into account is Steam's weekly sales chart, as measured by revenue. Today's chart shows that Loop Hero has climbed up to second place, despite being available for just three of the seven days taken into account. It's also in second place overall below Valheim, which has topped the list for over a month.

Suffice to say, Loop Hero is proving to be very successful on Steam. For a game that's a rare oddity, unique with its own mechanics, it's rare to find such success. It may have that roguelite style of "loop" gameplay mixed with meta progression that's consistently successful, but it's also clearly a risky endeavor to make something so unlike anything else. This time, it apparently worked out.

As with most indie game success stories, developer Four Quarters isn't taking its launch success in stride. The team issued two hotfixes within 24 hours of launch and has now released a third significant hotfix. That's encouraging for such a new release, and will likely only contribute to Loop Hero's continued success.

Loop Hero is an upcoming rogue-like RPG developed by Four Quarters and published by Devolver Digital, but that brief description doesn't do much justice to a game filled to the brim with unique features and concepts. Even watching the gameplay trailer doesn't fully convey what's going on to the viewer, so a hands-on experience is best for this. The game won't be coming out until later in 2021, but Game Rant recently had a chance to preview it for an interactive look at the upcoming title.

For starters, Loop Hero is developed by Four Quarters, a studio known for the creation of 2015's Please, Don't Touch Anything. This puzzle game flew mostly under the radar, and more name recognition will come from the title's publisher, Devolver Digital. Fans will recognize this name as the publisher for several popular games, including 2020's hit Fall Guys: Ultimate Knockout and other phenomenal titles in the rogue-like genre such as Enter the Gungeon. With that said, it's important to note that Loop Hero is very different from either of those titles, with the only similarity being that both it and Enter the Gungeon are rogue-likes at heart.