Just over a week ago Yu-Gi-Oh! Master Duel arrived on pretty much all current systems - including Switch - and is also rolling out on mobile. The free-to-play card deck-builder is obviously a significant release for long term fans of the franchise, and the chance to start at no cost can also tempt in a lot of curious players.
It's certainly picked up some early steam, and Konami has now confirmed that in just a week it's accrued over four million downloads. One metric for judging a game's popularity can be the Steam concurrent user count, and at the time of writing it's in the top 5 on the platform (having peaked at a whopping 226,802 users today). It's not visible in the eShop charts at present, though, but that may change.
Deck building games can be big hits, of course, and this one being a virtual representation of a popular real-world card game will certainly help. We thought it was a bit of a mixed bag in our review, but have also put together a guide for anyone jumping in as a beginner (as the game doesn't offer much help).
- Yu-Gi-Oh! Master Duel Review
- Yu-Gi-Oh! Master Duel Best Decks Starter Guide - Crafting And CP Explained
Have you tried it out, or are you tempted to give it a whirl soon? Let us know, as always, in the comments.
Comments 16
Tried playing this last night...servers were down, go figure. >.<
I was going to wait on this and go through Legacy, but holy crap the constant "Activate this trap card" message was annoying, also the random crashes.
Turns out this game does have tutorials on the newer stuff so I'm just going to go ahead and try this out instead.
Maybe I should give this a try.
At Platinum Rank now with my Hero deck, this exactly what the playerbase needed as Duel Links aside there wasn't really a proper official online focused competitive VG.
I will say though this ain't for casual fans or those new to the game.
ok? Isn't that like being impressed with shipping 400k in the first week of a game release though. I mean Kudos for getting the visibility, but I'd rather see retention numbers.
@WallyWest oh. Oh crud. I’m a casual player.
@NotSoCryptic do you know how much bigger 4M is than 400K?
I'm guilty of a download but uninstalled it after about 10 minutes. No reason for me to try and learn to git gud at this convoluted game with it's 20 rules for each rather ugly card and tiny text when I can easily play GWENT on my phone.
@Greatluigi I would say give it a shot, but definitely follow the gide here
https://www.nintendolife.com/guides/yu-gi-oh-master-duel-best-decks-starter-guide-crafting-and-cp-explained
I got the highest rank, but as there's no casual matchmaking I feel like I have to risk my rank if I just wanna play for fun. Kinda feel like if there's not going to be an unranked mode they should at least lock in your max rank 🙄
Yeah for FTP Gacha games I’m more interested in retention numbers and actual revenue numbers. Plenty of FTP games have good launches, but die off later. Wait until the honeymoon launch phase and streamers stop doing their promotions to get a more accurate gauge
With MD having access to a lot of free resources being frontended available shows they aimed for a successful launch in terms of attracting the greatest amount of people possible, but how will the retention work when those resources dry off? How are they gonna do events that won’t get stale? With DL they can milk that forever because they can just recycle the multiple animes for one which is why it lasted for several years and still existing fine with MD out now.
@MegaVel91 do you understand how important 400k was in sales for video games in 1995 to 2000.
I'm playing it right now, the amount of content available for free is staggering. As a casual player you'll never need to pay for anything. Also, personally as a competitive veteran player, I have no interest in just making the best decks, so I like earning cards slowly.
Konami ain't getting jack crap from me NFT selling douche's.
@Joeynator3000 "Activate this trap card" message is a thing in every single yugioh game 😛
@Arawn93 Its worth noting this game is exactly what the Yugioh community has been begging for in ages, Duel Links for the most part is casual while this is aimed at the pro and hardcore side. Konami was also wise at making the game have cross save and cross play, i can move between Switch and PS5 with the same profile with ease. The game will have a healthy future i feel as its appealing and marketed to the people what wanted it most. Plus with Covid going to events and locals right now is tough so something like this is great.
Downloaded it and deleted it after trying. If you are into emptying your wallet --> good game. If you want to experience any story --> Link Evolution
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