(Image credit: sekirothegame.com)

From Software is best known for its Dark Souls series, but it decided to branch out with Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice, and it seems like that risk has paid off. PCGamesN reported today that the game has had the biggest Steam launch of the year so far.

Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice trades the medieval fantasy theme of Demon's Souls and Dark Souls for an adventure in feudal Japan. (Or at least a version of feudal Japan that featured mechanical arms, magic, and terrifying creatures.) It also set itself apart from, uh, From Software's previous titles with a much faster pace.

Dark Souls is perhaps most well known for being a difficult series. Many people enjoy the games mostly because they allow someone to go from "how the hell am I supposed to beat this?" to "I might play through Dark Souls III with some bananas." Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice keeps that sense of hard-earned mastery.

It turns out that many people like that proposition. Steam Charts data shows that more than 100,000 copies of Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice were sold on Valve's marketplace in the 24 hours after its release. The game also had a peak player count of 125,315 people, which bests every single-player title but Grand Theft Auto V.

Multiplayer games like Dota 2 and Counter-Strike: Global Offensive had many more concurrent players. But for a single-player title, the numbers put up by Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice are impressive, especially since the game is truly single-player instead of being a hybrid of single- and multi-player like GTA 5.

PCGamesN said this launch also makes Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice the third-largest Japanese game after Monster Hunter World and Dark Souls III. It's clear that PC gamers trust From Software--and that the developer won't be confined to Dark Souls just because they became the reference point for difficult games.