Galactic Racer's busiest moment on Steam so far was 15,307 players at 3:17pm Central on launch day, in our hourly readings. On day two it ran about 15% lower at the same hours of the evening, topping out around 12,500. That is a normal second-day dip for a game that launched midweek, and it leaves Galactic Racer roughly level with every other Star Wars game we track on Steam, added together.
The rest of the picture moved the right way. Steam reviews have climbed from 77% positive on launch morning to 81%, now "Very Positive". Valve rated the game Verified for Steam Deck. What has not moved: there is no patch yet on any platform.
Day one and day two, hour by hour
Our tracker reads Steam's public player count once an hour. These are the evening readings for both days, Central time.
| Hour | Tue Oct 6 (launch) | Wed Oct 7 | Change |
|---|---|---|---|
| 4pm | 14,753 | 12,486 | -15% |
| 6pm | 13,754 | 11,439 | -17% |
| 7pm | 14,084 | 12,051 | -14% |
| 8pm | 14,521 | 12,400 | -15% |
| 9pm | 14,049 | 12,237 | -13% |
Launch day's high came in the afternoon, not the evening: 15,307 at 3:17pm, most likely because Europe's evening overlapped the US afternoon. One outlet reports a launch peak just over 15,400; hourly readings can miss the top by a few hundred, so treat ours as the floor. Two caveats on our side: a 5pm reading on launch day came back as zero, a Steam API glitch that hit two games at once, so it is left out; and we have no readings between 11pm Tuesday and 4pm Wednesday.
Against the rest of Star Wars
At 3:17pm on launch day Galactic Racer passed the combined total of the other Star Wars games we follow on Steam, 15,307 to 15,218. Since then the two have stayed close. At 9:17pm on Wednesday it was 12,237 against 11,498 for everything else together, Zero Company's 2,621 included.
For scale, Zero Company's launch was a much bigger Steam event: 68,966 at its day-one high in August and 62,810 the next day, a 9% drop. That second day was a Friday heading into a weekend, though, and Zero Company is a $50 tactics game, a genre that has always skewed to PC. Galactic Racer is a $60 racer on PC, PS5 and Xbox, and Steam numbers cannot see how many play on console. Both drops are in the normal range; the two launches are different sizes.
What changed since launch day
| Launch morning (Tue 11am) | Wednesday 9:20pm | |
|---|---|---|
| Steam reviews | 77% of 461, "Mostly Positive" | 81% of 2,232, "Very Positive" |
| Steam Deck | Not rated | Verified |
| Patch | None | None |
| Party size | 3 (6 promised) | 3, no date for 6 |
| Key rebinding | Not available | Not available; "considering it" |
Reviews are moving up. The new reviews are kinder than the first wave. The complaints have shifted too: in the newest English reviews, thin content for the price and missing modes now come up more often than key rebinding, which dominated launch day.
Key rebinding is under consideration, not promised. A Secret Mode developer replied on the Steam forums on launch morning that the team is "considering" it and hopes to find "a future solution". There is no date, and nothing new since. (Our launch-day piece missed that reply and now carries a correction.)
Still no patch. The official patch notes page says no patch has shipped, and the known-issues list from launch morning, including the RTX 50-series crash with frame generation on, has not changed.
What it means if you are deciding
If you were waiting on the Steam crowd, the verdict improved: 81% is in line with what critics said (87 on OpenCritic). Steam Deck owners can buy with more confidence now that Valve has verified it, though the overlay issue on the known-issues list still applies. Keyboard players who need custom bindings should keep waiting, since nothing is scheduled.
A 15% day-two dip says nothing worrying about the game. The number to watch is the first weekend: if Saturday and Sunday evenings come in above launch day, word of mouth is working. We will publish the full first week on Tuesday, October 13; until then the Galactic Racer hub collects everything we have.
Earlier: launch-day report, reviews roundup.
How we count
- Steam concurrent players from Steam's own public API, read once an hour by our tracker on launch day and from 4pm Central on day two. Steam only: PS5 and Xbox players are not counted anywhere public.
- "The rest of Star Wars" is the sum of the other 16 Star Wars games we track on Steam at the same reading.
- Steam review totals from Steam's review API, all languages, read at 9:20pm Central on October 7. Patch, Deck and rebinding status from the Steam store, Valve's compatibility report and the official Steam forum threads, checked the same afternoon.
