Once per year, Valve fan community LambdaGeneration comes together to resurrect the studio’s classics. In 2021, the group gathered together to play through Half-Life 2, breaking its concurrent player records at that time. The next years, they organized mass gatherings for Half-Life, followed by its two expansions, Half-Life: Opposing Force and Half-Life: Blue Shift. This year, and aptly timed for April Fool’s Day, they’re toting a long-running joke in the Valve games community – giving Ricochet the attention it deserves by more than tripling its all-time concurrent player numbers.
Originally released as a mod for Half-Life, Ricochet came out in a time before Steam was synonymous with PC gaming. Featuring “one-on-one and team matches played in a variety of futuristic battle arenas,” its Tron-esque duels take place in surreal, neon-lit maps drenched in late ‘90s/early 2000s PC game aesthetics. Criminally, it’s never been a hit. In fact, after a standalone release by Valve, it would forever sit as their least popular game, with an all-time concurrent player record of 95.
LambdaGeneration ricochets a forgotten valve game to its highest player count ever
For the LambdaGeneration community, that just doesn’t fly. “The Ricochet @SteamDB all-time peak player count stands at a measly 95 players. This is a travesty. We all know Ricochet is the best Valve game ever made. Justice must be done.”
Through a coordinated effort between LambdaGeneration and Team Fortress 2: Classic community Vault F4, Ricochet is officially vindicated. Minutes after the #RicochetingTheBar event began, the black sheep of Valve’s library would nearly quadruple its all-time player counter, reaching 353 concurrent Ricocheters.
As of this writing, the player numbers have begun to dwindle back to their former amount. But that didn’t stop me from jumping into one of Vault F4’s servers and getting a few games in. Surprisingly, there’s still plenty playing to fill a lobby on several servers. After nearly 25 years, I’m back to bouncing around, flinging discs at people, and on the receiving end of constant decapitation. It’s glorious. During one match, a grainy, lo-fi voice made an announcement through voice comms: “We’re all gathering on EU #1 for the Ricochet afterparty.” Sounds like this train ain’t stopping anytime soon.
If you somehow still don’t own Ricochet, you can grab it on Steam for $5. There’s no telling if you’ll have anyone to play with after today. But hey, at least you can say you were there for its greatest comeback.
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