(Image credit: Mega Crit Games)

Slay the Spire certainly turned heads when it released, immediately cementing itself as one of the best deckbuilders in town and helping to kick off a trend that persists today. That was nearly seven years ago at this point, but the game is turning even more heads today: it just hit an all-time concurrent player peak on Steam, according to SteamDB.

Remarkably, it’s not even close. Its previous peak is from when it released into early access in 2018, at just over 33,000 players, and this holiday season has brought it screaming past 57,000 a few hours before I wrote this article (it’s settled down to about 35,000 now—still a notch above the old record). The game has been good the whole time, but there are a few probable causes for this sudden surge in spire slaying.

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Justin first became enamored with PC gaming when World of Warcraft and Neverwinter Nights 2 rewired his brain as a wide-eyed kid. As time has passed, he’s amassed a hefty backlog of retro shooters, CRPGs, and janky ’90s esoterica. Whether he’s extolling the virtues of Shenmue or troubleshooting some fiddly old MMO, it’s hard to get his mind off games with more ambition than scruples. When he’s not at his keyboard, he’s probably birdwatching or daydreaming about a glorious comeback for real-time with pause combat. Any day now...

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