Enormous, 500-hour survival game becomes Steam bestseller after just one day

It’s a tough world out there. Baldur’s Gate 3, Elden Ring, Helldivers 2 – the Steam bestseller list is packed with recognized, beloved, and terrific games that have sold in the millions. Breaching the top ten on Valve’s storefront is no easy feat, but one gigantic new survival game, which blends the tropical vistas of Far Cry, the building and crafting of The Forest, and the gradual progression of Rust, has become one of the top games on Steam after a single day. Boasting more than 500 hours of playtime, this one’s a beast, and it’s already taking off.

Soulmask is an open-world survival game with a smart twist. You have seven biomes to explore, 75 battle skills to perfect, six giant bosses to slay, and boundless brewing, crafting, and building to keep you busy. But developer CampFire Studio wants to shift the focus away from the normal genre busywork and focus much more on combat and exploration. This is where your villagers come in. In Soulmask, you recruit NPCs to your settlement, and direct them to gather resources, stockpile food, and build the bare necessities on your behalf, thus freeing you up to do more of the good stuff. But you can also shift into new characters on the fly.

The eponymous masks act as a kind of portable, exchangeable character build. Let’s say you’re trying to sneak into an enemy stronghold, but in your current form, you have high strength and melee abilities, but not very good stealth. One of your villages, however, does have good sneaking stats. Take off your mask, put it on them, and you can possess their body and combine your own skills with theirs – you retain your combat ability, but inherit their sneakiness.

Speaking with PCGamesN at this year’s GDC, the makers of Soulmask say the open-world game could last as long as 500 hours, if you’re the kind of player who likes to see, collect, and defeat everything. It also has PvP and co-op, with more to follow after its initial launch. The Soulmask early-access release was recently brought forward, and the game finally hit Steam on Friday May 31. In the short time since it landed, Soulmask has reached number four on the Steam global bestseller list, outpacing Elden Ring (which has jumped back up the chart ahead of Shadow of the Erdtree), Ghost of Tsushima, and spiritual rival Rust.

While it’s still early days, Soulmask has also obtained a ‘mostly positive’ rating on Steam – 75% of player reviews so far are favorable. If you want to try it for yourself, it’s available now in early access for $26.99 / £22.49. You can get it here.

Otherwise, the best sandbox games might be what you’re looking for, or maybe the best new PC games which are blowing up right now.

You can also follow us on Google News for daily PC games news, reviews, and guides, or grab our PCGN deals tracker to net yourself some bargains.