Nobody’s Playing The Jujutsu Kaisen Fighting Game

Originally posted on Parade | By Oliver Brandt | Last updated Feb 15, 2024 12:00 PM ET

Earlier this month, Bandai Namco released an all-new fighting game based on one of the biggest anime in recent history, Jujutsu Kaisen. While it seemed like it should have been a big hit, Jujutsu Kaisen: Cursed Clash released to some pretty negative reviews, and now, basically nobody is playing it.

As noticed by Twitter user Esther, and confirmed on Steam Charts, it seems like, for a brief moment, Jujutsu Kaisen: Cursed Clash’s concurrent player count on Steam dropped to a grand total of zero. Now, there are some caveats — the surrounding data puts it at around 200 players each side of this blip, and the same drop doesn’t seem to be reflected on SteamDB, but even if it’s an anomaly, that doesn’t mean it’s clear skies for the troubled game.

It finally happened. It finally hit 0 pic.twitter.com/7S5I1ne9bu
— Esther (@EstherGoddo_) February 15, 2024

Jujutsu Kaisen: Cursed Clash peaked on Steam at a little over 5000 players, almost immediately upon its launch. It almost immediately dropped to a quarter of that shortly after, and despite some small bumps following, has rapidly dropped in the two weeks since. At the time of writing, only 136 people were playing the game, and the 24-hour peak was just 247 — shockingly low for a game based on a hit anime.

For reference, Dragon Ball FighterZ, a game that’s over six years old, has a 24-hour peak of over 1000 players. Steam player counts aren’t the only measure of success, of course, as Cursed Clash is also available on PS4, PS5, Xbox One, Xbox Series X|S, and Nintendo Switch, but it’s a pretty good indicator overall that something’s underperforming.

It’s no surprise that it’s dropped off so fast, though. Reviews for Cursed Clash were very negative, with the game sitting on a score of 46/100 from both critics and users on review score aggregator Metacritic. It was slammed for its tiny launch roster, lackluster gameplay, minimal story campaign, and rough controls.

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