After Genshin Impact, Party Animals is the latest hit from Chinese game developers
- On Monday the number of concurrent players on Party Animals was more than twice the number playing Fall Guys
- Niko Partners estimates there are about 720 million game players in China
Chinese game Party Animals saw more than 113,000 players logged on simultaneously on its fourth free trial day, shattering the previous concurrent player record held by a Chinese game on the Steam platform.
Developed by Recreate Games, Party Animals is a multiplayer game where players adopt the personas of dolls and puppets to brawl with friends. While not officially released, a game demo available as a free trial from October 4 to 13 took the industry by storm, making it the latest party game sensation following the success of Among Us and Fall Guys: Ultimate Knockout.
While Chinese video games are increasingly popular around the world, the initial success of Party Animals also reflects the rising interest in physics-based party games, a phenomenon accelerated by the Covid-19 pandemic that has seen people turning to video games as a new way to socialise.
Party Animals became the Chinese game with the highest number of concurrent players on Steam, breaking the record established by The Scroll of Taiwu in 2018, according to Chinese media Gamelook. The new game also amassed an enormous number of views on live-streaming platform Twitch, with more than 113,000 viewers – coincidentally the same as the number of players on the fourth day – tuning in to watch the game last Friday.
Given the success of the demo, Recreate Games said it is now developing a smartphone version of the game.
“Party Animals builds and innovates on the same concepts that led to the global success of games such as Gang Beasts, Human Fall Flat and more recently Fall Guys,” said Daniel Ahmad, senior analyst at game consultancy Niko Partners.