Once Human Dominates Steam Next Fest with Soaring Wishlists

NetEase's upcoming third-person shooter, Once Human, boasts over 15 million global pre-registrations, highlighting its success at Steam Next Fest. However, a closer look reveals a significant difference between its mobile and PC performance. While pre-registrations are impressive, only 300,000 translate to Steam wishlists. This disparity underscores the challenges of achieving comparable discoverability on PC compared to mobile platforms, even for a large developer like NetEase.

Despite this, Once Human remains highly popular on Steam, attracting the largest number of demo players during Steam Next Fest. This highlights the contrasting landscapes of mobile and PC gaming, with the former maintaining a significant advantage in reach and visibility.

Subscribe to Pocket Gamer on

NetEase's PC-focused strategy for Once Human isn't inherently flawed, but the figures reveal a substantial difference in audience engagement between PC and mobile. This discrepancy underscores the difficulty even major developers face in replicating their mobile success on PC.

While awaiting Once Human's release, consider exploring our curated lists of the best and most anticipated mobile games of 2024. These lists offer a diverse selection of high-quality mobile titles to enjoy in the interim.