The highly anticipated 1.0 launch of the action RPG Last Epoch saw unprecedented numbers try to access the game, immediately putting the new Last Epoch servers to the test. Within just 20 minutes of the full release going live, a staggering 150,000 players attempted to log in, according to a statement from the game’s director Judd Cobler on the official subreddit.
“This massive influx of players did mean that all of our scale testing was instantly pushed beyond its limits,” Cobler explained. “Unfortunately, a critical service failure occurred that we had not foreseen, slowing login and load times to a crawl.” With so many trying to access the game simultaneously, the Last Epoch servers were overwhelmed, suffering from what’s commonly referred to as a “hug of death”.
Addressing the Server Issues
To help address the server issues, the development team stayed active on the Discord providing updates. Cobler also assured players that they were hard at work investigating and resolving the problems behind the scenes. As an apology for the rocky launch, all players who joined during this period will receive a free cosmetic item automatically as a thank you for their patience. The game also features an offline mode that allowed some to still experience the 1.0 content while Last Epoch servers stabilized.
The immense, 150,000-strong player surge within the game’s first 20 minutes of full launch shows just how high anticipation had built for Last Epoch 1.0. To put the scale of that Last Epoch server load into context, Helldivers 2 developers recently increased that game’s concurrent player cap to a massive 700,000 after its servers were overwhelmed by the sizable playerbase.
While Last Epoch may not have quite reached those numbers yet, it’s clear the action-RPG’s 1.0 release has captured the attention of tens of thousands of ARPG fans ready to continue their journey in the post-apocalyptic world. Only time will tell if the Last Epoch servers can reliably handle the high player volumes as the community continues to grow.