Super Meat Boy 3D failed to beat the original game's peak player count

Super Meat Boy 3D had a lot to prove after Super Meat Boy Forever, a middling auteur that Edmund McMillen was partly to blame for leaving the team. Thankfully, Super Meat Boy 3D proved itself to be a very strong outing (my colleague George Foster gave it four stars in his review for TheGamer ), but unfortunately, it still hasn't been enough to lift the series out of the dark world.

At launch, Super Meat Boy 3D hit a peak concurrent player count of only 621 (via SteamDB), just 12 percent of the original Super Meat Boy's all-time peak concurrent player count of 5,153. In fact, 15 years later, more people are now playing the original game, as Super Meat Boy currently holds a 24-hour peak of 531 players, while Super Meat Boy 3D has dropped to a peak concurrent player count of 432.

On the overall Steam charts, Super Meat Boy 3D is the 1633rd most played game in the last 24 hours, behind Kingdom Hearts 3, Dead Island, Outlast 2 and Spelunky 2.

Of course, peak concurrent player counts aren't an entirely accurate representation of a game's success, especially with a title like Super Meat Boy 3D that launched on Xbox Game Pass day and date. However, these figures are still a good barometer for interest in the game, and a concurrent peak of just 621 makes it clear that Super Meat Boy 3D is not the runaway hit that Team Meat had hoped for.

Super Meat Boy 3D is struggling to win over fans, but it's reviewing well with gamers

Super Meat Boy Platforming between blocks and laser beams.

Still, it's not a complete disaster for team meat and series newcomer Sluggerfly; While Super Meat Boy 3D may not have done well on Steam, it currently holds a 'very positive' review score, with 390 reviews at the time of writing.

“2D sounds like Super Meat Boy but it's 3D,” one player wrote. “One of the funnest platformers I've played in a long time.”

Super Meat Boy games ranked by peak concurrent player count

Super Meat Boy – 5,153.
Super Meat Boy 3D – 621.
Super Meat Boy Always – 237.
Dr. Fetus' Mean Meat Machine – 62.

“Super Meat Boy 3D honestly lives up to the original and it was all for Team Meat not to make it,” wrote another.

Team Meat may not have clawed its way out of the shadow of the original game with Edmund McMillen or Super Meat Boy 3D, but if nothing else, it has a much better chance of becoming a cult classic than Forever. After all, one player said, it's “the first good Meat Boy game since 2010.”