Within 24 hours after release on Steam, the grand strategy title Stellaris is the new king of the hill for publisher Paradox Interactive.

In a release touting the milestone, Paradox said the space-themed game had 68,000 simultaneous players on the day of release, beating out previous champion Cities: Skylines. And less than 24 hours after release, the game had sold more than 200,000 units, becoming the biggest revenue producer for Paradox within that time frame. 

”Stellaris breaks a lot of new ground for Paradox Development Studio," said Henrik Fåhraeus, the game director for Stellaris. "It is a type of game we have never attempted to do before, and we are immensely satisfied to see this leap of faith work out well, especially with all the positive response we are getting from the players. We are listening very keenly to all the feedback we are getting and look forward to many years of continued expansions and improvements to the game.”

“We are immensely proud of the Paradox team for putting together such a stellar release,” said Fredrik Wester, CEO of Paradox Interactive. “This release is the result of hard work and dedication from the entire company and in particular Paradox Development Studio. The incredible reception by players, indicated for instance by the Steam user reviews, is all the proof we could ask for that our hard work paid off.”

As a strategy fan, I may have to give this a try.