Netflix's "The Witcher" series, starring Henry Cavill (Man of Steel) as Geralt of Rivia, premiered on the streaming service earlier this month and it has already become one of the highest watched TV shows in the U.S. according to Business Insider.
Despite poor critical reception, "The Witcher" is currently the third most in-demand original streaming series in the U.S., behind only Netflix’s "Stranger Things" and Disney Plus’ "The Mandalorian".
Personally, I loved the first season of "The Witcher", even more so than the other two aforementioned series in the "Top 3." I feel the series is, thus far, a pretty damn faithful adaptation of both the popular books and games. Not to mention, Cavill totally captured the very essence of Geralt.
Of course, with the series immense success, comes a spike in curiosity in regards to The Witcher on other media formats, namely The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt, which is now more popular on Steam than ever before, according to Marcin Momot, global community lead for developer CD Projekt Red.
Apparently, the game hit a total concurrent player count of over 50,000 players on Steam after the Netflix series was released on December 20th. Taking a look at Steam Charts, one will see that the game hit over 90,000 concurrent players on Steam (not including GOG.com or consoles) when it launched in May 2015. Since its launch, the game had noticeable spikes in players in May and June 2016, following the release of the "Blood and Wine" DLC.
Since then, the player count remained at a median 20,000-30,000 player count until the TV series' premiere, which led to this latest peak. By December 26th, over 70,000 concurrent players were slaying monsters in the lands of the Continent within the Steam version of the game. Of course, this number is expected to be much higher when factoring in the Xbox One, Playstation 4 and Nintendo Switch versions of the game.
I've actually jumped back into the game on Xbox and recently went out and picked up the Switch version of the game to play on the go. The Witcher is more popular than ever and I, along with thousands of fans, couldn't be happier!
Are you a fan of Netflix's "The Witcher"? Have you jumped back into the books or the games recently? Let us know in the comments below!