An impressive amount of players play Paladins, while the game is not even one year old!
According to Hi-Rez Studios statement just a few days ago, their free to play shooter: Paladins has 8.5 million users. This information does not stand entirely true though. Why do we say that? Simply because based on information revealed 3 days ago, those numbers are not entirely accurate. Paladins has a total of 11 million registered players, which is 2.5 millions more than what they previously claimed. Considering that it has only been 8 months since the game was still in early access, we can safely say that this is quite an accomplishment. Not to mention the fact that we don’t take into account the Chinese players. That’s because the game is still in Closed Testing in China using separate servers. This is why it doesn’t come as a surprise that Paladins was the top new game of 2016 on Steam in terms of overall playtime.
Official Hi-Rez Studios statement
On Steam Paladins was the top new game of 2016 in terms of overall playtime.
It is just 2 weeks since the Xbox One & PS4 Open Beta on May 3rd, and there are now well over 2 million console Paladins players.
And so in the eight months since Early Access the total Paladins player count is now over 11 million, and growing rapidly.
This does not count any players in China; since the China version of Paladins is still in Closed Testing on separate servers. In China, the game will be published by Tencent Games, the leading Publisher in that market.
The success of the game so far has allowed us to greatly staff up the Development Team (Smite’s Dev Team also continues to grow by the way). In 2017 the Dev Team has managed to deliver: a new update every 2 weeks, 6 New Champions (Torvald, Maeve, Inara, Lex, Seris, Willo), 2 New Maps (Stone Keep, Brightmarsh), experimental Alternate Modes (PvE, Survival), a ton of test maps, and features we saw as most requested from the community, such as integrated Voice Chat
This is what the future holds for Paladins
Mastery System / Mastery Rewards of various types
Ranked 2.0, based more on Account vs Champion. We’ve heard your feedback and agree that the current Ranked Mode needs to be improved.
Quality of Life / bug fixes. We realize things like Androxus’ Reversal bug and Fernando Shield bug are rage inducing. We addressed a few in .50 and will continue to pay attention to these gameplay & polish items
New Champs. We are excited about the next set of new Champions and will continue to release 2 champs every 3 patches until we get to a total of 30 Champions around August. We feel that a large champion roster, combined with upcoming ability to Ban in draft picking, is healthy for our competitive game. After 30 Champs we slow down just a little; but for us slowing down still means a new Champion approximately once a month from August until the end of 2017.
At least one new PvP Game Mode for your testing & feedback
Getting updates out more quickly to both the Xbox One and PS4! This is dependent on platform providers and their certification timelines. But our goal is to get down to only ONE WEEK between PC updates and that same update going live on XBox One and Playstation 4.
LORE! ‘Cause Lore
Legendaries. Some of them aren’t great and need help.
Big Esports Investment and Announcements. The upcoming July Dreamhack Valencia event (100K PC, 50K Console Wars) is just the beginning. We’ve been pleased to see a global appetite to play competitive Paladins and we will be supporting that in a huge way. More details to be announced during the Dreamhack Valencia esports broadcast.
Re-introduction of new PvE/Co-op mode; but this will be after all the above