Black Desert Online Remastered doubles number of returning players in the West
New player acquisition also up by almost 25 per cent during first week across North America and Europe
Kakao Games is reporting a "massive surge" in players for its MMO Black Desert Online a week after it launched a remastered version.
The game was given a visual overhaul and new orchestral soundtrack, plus a fresh marketing boost, and the publisher reports that returning players have more than doubled - up 103.6 per cent compared to the week before launch.
Kakao also reports it has attracted a solid base of new players, up by 24.2 per cent. Both figures are for North America and Europe, rather than its home market of South Korea.
However, it's not clear how many players this actually translates to. GamesIndustry.biz has contacted Kakao for clarification.
Earlier this year, the publisher revealed Black Desert Online had a player base of three million across North America and Europe, according to MassivelyOP. And a glance at Steam Charts shows that the game has definitely seen an uptick in concurrent players over the past week.
In the week before the Remastered launch, the game peaked at 12,622 concurrent players (on Sunday, August 19th at 7pm) but this rose to 15,640 exactly one week later. At the time of writing, the highest the game has achieved over the past 24 hours is 14,968.
There is often boost around the launch of an expansion of re-release and curious players investigate how much has changed. The challenge for Kakao is now to retain this larger playerbase.
UPDATE: Kakao Games has told GamesIndustry.biz Black Desert Online stands at 3.1 million registered users, with 2.3 million sales achieved through a combination of Steam and its own web portal.