Key Highlights:
- Team Soda’s Escape from Duckov has sold over a million copies on PC.
- There’s a lot to like here, and Duckov is a genuinely fun little game.
- This proves that indie gaming is the future.
Developer Team Soda and publisher bilibli’s newest game, Escape from Duckov has managed to sell over a million copies on PC, in under a week after its release. This number includes both Steam and Epic Games Store players.
At its core, Escape from Duckov is an extraction shooter, but the way it’s presented (along with its gameplay loop) makes it stand out from the sea of indie titles along the way. It’s quite a unique game, and its success is quite well deserved.
Escape From Duckov Crosses Over a Million Copies Sold on PC
Over a million players have purchased Escape from Duckov on PC, a remarkable feat for what appears to be a deceptively simple game. The same was conveyed via an official Steam community post, thanking all players for their support.
1 MILLION of duckling joined the adventure — THANK YOU from the bottom of our webbed feet. 🙏🦆💙
— Escape from Duckov (@GameDuckov) October 22, 2025
🎁 Another 20 FREE game keys to celebrate our milestone!! 🦆🎉
How to enter:
✅ Follow
🔁 Repost this Tweet
We’ll DM the 20 winners on October 27th — let’s… pic.twitter.com/VRIzE0k6z6
Do note that this number takes into account all sold copies, and none from refunds and/or inactive players. That being said, this is still an impressive number, further bolstered by the fact that the game has over 125,800 concurrent players, with a 93.63% rating (as per SteamDB), based on 14,000 reviews.
With all this in mind, Team Soda has promised additional updates to the game, which should be revealed soon.
So What Exactly Makes Escape From Duckov Click?
Duckov isn’t particularly revolutionary at first glance. It’s your bog standard extraction shooter, having you slowly level up your gear and weapons to clear stages faster. The incentive for doing so is gaining access to rarer loot, which can in turn be used to strengthen your character.
It’s this loop of dopamine induced looter shooter feedback that makes Duckov click, and is executed rather marvellously as well. Duckov’s crafting systems and overall progression is a bit more on the lenient side, offering a far less punishing experience when compared to the likes of Escape from Tarkov.
Also Read: Ninja Gaiden 4 Releases to Very Positive Reviews on Steam, but Not Everything Is Perfect
That being said, Escape from Duckov isn’t a walk in the park either – you will require careful planning, and some serious skills to make it through an extraction. Difficulty also ramps up quite quickly, and boss fights in particular are especially challenging.
Coupled with a rather fun, quirky and often silly aesthetic, Duckov manages to deliver on all fronts, and is a perfect example of what makes a viral indie game click.
Indie Games Are the Future
If there’s any conclusion we can draw from this, it’s that indie games are particularly thriving in an industry consumed by decay and stagnating AAA franchises. Indie titles appear to be the future of gaming, and AAA can be blamed for its own current predicament here.
Long gone are the days of innovation and pushing forward bold new ideas. Instead, we have most game publishers push out half baked projects and live service titles that no one asked for – all in an attempt to generate more sales.
In stark contrast, the indie scene is driven by passion, as developers try to make something truly unique, one that stands out on its own amidst a sea of mediocrity.
While there’s no denying that sales play a huge factor, helping developers gain the recognition (and monetary gains) they so deserve, the fact of the matter is that indie games consistently innovate and deliver while most big name AAA titles fail spectacularly.
This is going to be the future of the gaming industry moving forward, and we should see a lot more creative titles being released.
