AFK Journey — the idle RPG that pulled $158.3 million on mobile in six months and won Apple’s App Store Game of the Year — arrived on Steam April 27 as a free-to-play download. One day in, it’s sitting at 241 concurrent players and a 100% positive rating from two user reviews.

Small sample size, but the enthusiasm is real. One early review, written in Spanish, calls it “the best gacha” and slaps a GOTY label on it, hyping the incoming Frieren: Beyond Journey’s End collaboration. That collab launches May 1 and adds Frieren and Himmel as playable characters through a 7-day login event — no gacha pull required. Free characters, straight to your roster. For a genre built on predatory drop rates, that’s a notable flex.

Developed by Lilith Games and published under the Farlight Games label, AFK Journey is a sequel to AFK Arena. It debuted on Windows, Android, and iOS in March 2024, peaked at $3.36 million daily revenue after its Asia launch, and crossed 15 million downloads by December, according to Wikipedia. Google Play named it iPhone Game of the Year for 2024. The Game Awards nominated it for Best Mobile Game. It also took home a Hollywood Music in Media Award. This is not some niche upstart — it’s a decorated heavyweight testing new waters.

The Steam port follows a well-worn path. Genshin Impact and Honkai: Star Rail proved mobile-first gacha can build real PC audiences. AFK Journey differentiates itself with idle mechanics and a storybook-art aesthetic rather than action-RPG combat, but it faces the same question: will keyboard-and-mouse players tolerate a monetization model designed for phone screens?

The Frieren collaboration on May 1 — AFK Journey’s third anime crossover after Delicious in Dungeon and Fairy Tail — should be the first real benchmark. If the player count spikes, Farlight has a multi-platform winner. If it doesn’t, 241 concurrent players is a quiet launch by any standard.

Sources