Between Ghost of Yōtei, Battlefield 6, Pokémon Legends: Z-A, and more, October has been a busy month for gamers. Yet, the myriad of excellent releases hasn’t stopped an indie game about rifle-wielding ducks from blowing up on Steam.
Escape from Duckov is a top-down extraction shooter where you’ll “outwit hostile ducks” as you scavenge for resources and build a base, according to the official game description. The juxtaposition between serious, tactical gameplay and humorously expressive ducks (just look at this little guy’s face) is immediately appealing, but cute ducks in military gear isn’t the only reason Escape from Duckov has landed with players — over 2 million of them, in fact. It’s peaked at over 300,000 concurrent players on Steam, and at the time of writing 287,000 ducks are playing the game.
Developer Team Soda’s duck-themed shooter doesn’t have any sort of multiplayer component and is offline PVE only. It’s a departure from the genre, which is typically played with others, and is meeting solo players where they’re at. “If you enjoy extraction games but do not enjoy other people(derogatory) then this is the one for you,” reads one Steam review. “As someone with hundreds of hours wasted in Tarkov. I do clearly have a yearning for some sort of extraction shooter; I am just not all that competitive anymore,” another player writes before praising Duckov and its gameplay loop.
“I’ve always wanted to be a duck, and this game finally gave me the opportunity to live out my dream,” reads perhaps the most relatable Steam review.
Escape from Duckov passed 2 million copies sold early Tuesday morning, and accomplished that feat in under two weeks, having launched on Oct. 16. “2 million ducklings are now waddling through Duckov!” the game’s developer shared in a Steam blog post. “A massive thank you to every player & our amazing MOD creators who helped build this incredible community!”
Team Soda’s embrace of the game’s mod community has no doubt helped its popularity. “We’ve always believed that Duckov’s potential extends far beyond what the dev team alone can envision — it thrives on co-creation by players and creators,” it wrote in a separate blog post. That post serves as a guide for using mods, as well as a way for mod creators to sign up for official mod support to receive access to dev builds of the game.
The developers and publisher Bilibili are celebrating by giving away 20 free copies of Duckov, and you can read up on how to enter on the game’s X. This is the third time they’re giving away 20 keys after doing so for reaching the 500,000 and 1 million sales milestones.
Those keys will be given away on Friday, Oct. 31. If you don’t want to wait for the chance at a free one, you can pick up Escape from Duckov at a 12% discount for $15.83 on Steam until Oct. 30.