Escape from Duckov sells 500,000 copies in 3 days, surging past 180,000 concurrent players on Steam

Escape from Duckov has surfaced as a surprise sensation on Steam in the avian chaos of the extraction shooter genre, racking up over 500,000 unit sales in just three days since its October 16, 2025, launch.

Escape from Duckov’s developer, Team Soda, celebrated the milestone in an announcement on X, stating, “Over 500K of you joined the adventure, your support means everything. To celebrate, we’re giving away 20 free game keys to lucky Ducklings!!”

As the name suggests, Escape from Duckov is a top-down PvE looter-shooter, developed by a personal team at China’s Bilibili-owned studio, Team Soda. The game transforms players into plucky little ducks scavenging a bizarre “Duck Planet” for resources, blueprints, and upgrading hideouts while battling hordes of hostile fowls.

The game is currently priced at $15.83 and is scheduled to increase to $18 on October 30. Escape from Duckov promises over 50 hours of replayable content via procedural maps, more than 50 weapon types, and a plot unraveling the “truth of Duckov”, all delivered humorously that pokes fun at its muse, Escape from Tarkov.

The game began as a demo and drew a respectable amount of attention, but has now exploded into viral ‘fowl play’, outpacing expectations for an indie title that ditches the intense PvP survival elements of Tarkov.

 The weekend frenzy propelled Escape from Duckov to 146,602 concurrent players on Steam, a fourfold increase over its launch-day high of 34,958 players. As of October 20, Escape from Duckov has surpassed 180,000 concurrent players on Steam.

At the time of writing, Escape from Duckov stands at the sixth spot on Steam’s most-played games, trailing behind Delta Force, Battlefield 6, PUBG: Battlegrounds, Dota 2, and Counter-Strike 2, and edging out popular titles like Apex Legends, Arc Raiders Playtest, and Rust.

Steam reviews have poured in at an Overwhelmingly Positive 95% approval rate out of 6,000 reviews. Many players have praised the game for its addictive loop of risk-reward raids and base-building without the toxicity of multiplayer griefing seen in games like Rust. However, players have expressed some quibbles over the fixed floating camera and are requesting that developers add co-op.