A brand new challenger is rising within the ranks. Umamusume: Pretty Derby, the free-to-play sports activities sim recreation about horse women, is racing up the Steam charts. The gacha recreation has been garnering consideration since its launch in North America in June, thanks partially to streams from mainstream creators like Northernlion and Vinesauce. It hit its all-time-peak of simply over 50,000 simultaneous gamers yesterday, July 9, and has been boasting new private bests day after day.
To place that quantity in perspective, that’s simply over double the variety of concurrent gamers at launch. The recreation is now squarely within the high 50 most-played video games on Steam, in accordance with SteamDB. That places it in competitors with video games like Elden Ring Nightreign and Warframe.
Umamusume: Pretty Derby has been a phenomenon in Japan for some time, spawning tie-in anime, spin-off celebration video games, and even a stage play. The titular Umamusume are girls with a horse’s velocity and strength–they additionally sport pointy ears and tails. In the course of the day, they race. At evening, they carry out in lavish pop concert events for his or her followers. The kicker is that every of the woman relies on an precise well-known race horse. One among them, a lovable loser named Haru Urara, remains to be alive and fans have taking to visiting her at the farm the place she now lives. The developer even put out a press release about correct etiquette for visiting a stable. It is weird issues like this, the sort of reality that you just could not say about every other recreation, that appear to be fueling Umamusume’s word-of-mouth momentum.
If you’re accustomed to social simulation video games like Princess Maker or Idol Supervisor, you will perceive the fundamentals of how Umamusume: Pretty Derby performs. Every horse woman begins with a set of aptitudes and stats which you’ll be able to improve via coaching. At races, they’ll show their mettle and, in the event that they place excessive sufficient, progress to more durable challenges. Nevertheless it’s not all work. Coaching is often interrupted by visual-novel-esque segments and storylines. Nevertheless, to unlock your horse woman of selection you’ll have to have interaction with the sport’s plentiful playing mechanics. At its coronary heart, Umamusume is a recreation about gathering jpegs. You may need to spend copious quantities of cash to get the one you need.
You may play Umamusume free of charge on Steam or in your cell machine.