The Game Census
Populous™: The Beginning cover art

Populous™: The Beginning

Bullfrog Productions · Electronic Arts · 2024-03-07

SteamGOGEpic Games Store

RPGStrategy

Modes: Single player, Multiplayer · Perspectives: Bird view / Isometric

Releases: Dec 20, 2007 (PlayStation Portable), Nov 30, 1998 (PC (Microsoft Windows)), Apr 08, 1999 (PlayStation), Dec 20, 2007 (PlayStation 3)

In the third part of the Populous series, you control your shaman and the tribe of her followers in a difficult quest to conquer all 25 planets of a star system and ascend to godhood.

Populous™: The Beginning is a 2024 RPG and Strategy game priced at $4.99, with an estimated 100,000 to 200,000 owners and a Very Positive review sentiment (88% of 451 reviews).

20
playing now
88%
positive of 451 reviews
Very Positive
steam's rating (official)
100,000–200,000
owners (SteamSpy est.)
75/100
IGDB user rating (39 ratings)
gold
deck/linux tier (ProtonDB)
Playable
Steam Deck (Valve)
SteamOS: Playable
$4.99
steam price (US)

20 players in-game as of 2026-10-14 16:00 UTC (census sample)

Populous: The Beginning is a real-time strategy video game and the third entry in the Populous series, developed by Bullfrog Productions. The game was released in 1998 on Microsoft Windows, and in 1999 for the PlayStation. Unlike earlier games in the series, which cast the player in the role of a god influencing loyal followers, The Beginning took a radical departure and placed the player in the role of a shaman, who directly leads her tribe against opponents. Throughout the twenty-five missions of the campaign, the player leads their tribe across a solar system, dominating enemy tribes and tapping new sources of magic, with the ultimate goal of the shaman attaining godhood herself.

Health check

Quietly active
  • · 20 players in-game at the last census sample.
  • · 52 reviews in the last 8 weeks (~7/week).
  • · Review velocity down 2% vs the prior 8 weeks.
  • · Top 25% of 13,925 RPG games in the census by review count.

Health tier since 2026-09-01

Estimated sales: 9.0k–20k copies

Review-multiple estimate from 451 total reviews — how this is computed.

All-time low: $0.89 at GOG (2018-06-04)via IsThereAnyDeal

12-month high $5.99 · on sale 39 of 51 observed days (census price snapshots)

Review momentum

PositiveNegative
12712720242026Week of 2024-03-01: 127 positiveWeek of 2024-03-01: 11 negativeWeek of 2024-04-01: 22 positiveWeek of 2024-04-01: 2 negativeWeek of 2024-05-01: 22 positiveWeek of 2024-05-01: 4 negativeWeek of 2024-06-01: 16 positiveWeek of 2024-06-01: 4 negativeWeek of 2024-07-01: 13 positiveWeek of 2024-08-01: 6 positiveWeek of 2024-08-01: 2 negativeWeek of 2024-09-01: 8 positiveWeek of 2024-10-01: 13 positiveWeek of 2024-10-01: 3 negativeWeek of 2024-11-01: 23 positiveWeek of 2024-11-01: 1 negativeWeek of 2024-12-01: 16 positiveWeek of 2024-12-01: 1 negativeWeek of 2025-01-01: 6 positiveWeek of 2025-01-01: 4 negativeWeek of 2025-02-01: 9 positiveWeek of 2025-02-01: 1 negativeWeek of 2025-03-01: 12 positiveWeek of 2025-03-01: 2 negativeWeek of 2025-04-01: 4 positiveWeek of 2025-05-01: 4 positiveWeek of 2025-05-01: 2 negativeWeek of 2025-06-01: 5 positiveWeek of 2025-06-01: 1 negativeWeek of 2025-07-01: 6 positiveWeek of 2025-07-01: 1 negativeWeek of 2025-08-01: 6 positiveWeek of 2025-08-01: 2 negativeWeek of 2025-09-01: 11 positiveWeek of 2025-09-01: 1 negativeWeek of 2025-10-01: 4 positiveWeek of 2025-11-01: 5 positiveWeek of 2025-11-01: 1 negativeWeek of 2025-12-01: 6 positiveWeek of 2025-12-01: 1 negativeWeek of 2026-01-01: 7 positiveWeek of 2026-01-01: 2 negativeWeek of 2026-02-01: 6 positiveWeek of 2026-03-01: 1 positiveWeek of 2026-03-01: 2 negativeWeek of 2026-04-01: 6 positiveWeek of 2026-04-01: 3 negativeWeek of 2026-05-01: 7 positiveWeek of 2026-06-01: 3 positiveWeek of 2026-06-01: 1 negativeWeek of 2026-07-01: 7 positiveWeek of 2026-08-01: 4 positiveWeek of 2026-08-01: 2 negative
Weekly review counts (Steam review histogram). Positive above the line, negative below.

Players online

2752026-09-15 01:00 — 7 players2026-09-16 09:00 — 11 players2026-09-17 17:00 — 6 players2026-09-19 00:00 — 8 players2026-09-20 08:00 — 13 players2026-09-21 15:00 — 13 players2026-09-22 23:00 — 9 players2026-09-24 06:00 — 9 players2026-09-25 14:00 — 19 players2026-09-26 21:00 — 20 players2026-09-28 05:00 — 9 players2026-09-29 12:00 — 5 players2026-09-30 20:00 — 11 players2026-10-02 03:00 — 6 players2026-10-03 11:00 — 14 players2026-10-04 19:00 — 27 players2026-10-06 03:00 — 15 players2026-10-07 10:00 — 12 players2026-10-08 18:00 — 17 players2026-10-10 01:00 — 15 players2026-10-11 09:00 — 21 players2026-10-12 16:00 — 17 players2026-10-14 00:00 — 16 players2026-10-14 16:00 — 20 players
Concurrent players, hourly average, last 30 days (census samples).
5010Mar 2024Aug 2026Mar 2024 — avg 50 · peak 164Apr 2024 — avg 18 · peak 48May 2024 — avg 17 · peak 48Jun 2024 — avg 13 · peak 40Jul 2024 — avg 16 · peak 37Aug 2024 — avg 13 · peak 30Sep 2024 — avg 12 · peak 29Oct 2024 — avg 12 · peak 29Nov 2024 — avg 14 · peak 33Dec 2024 — avg 15 · peak 35Jan 2025 — avg 12 · peak 30Feb 2025 — avg 12 · peak 27Mar 2025 — avg 12 · peak 26Apr 2025 — avg 10 · peak 26May 2025 — avg 13 · peak 30Jun 2025 — avg 11 · peak 24Jul 2025 — avg 11 · peak 25Aug 2025 — avg 11 · peak 32Sep 2025 — avg 11 · peak 24Oct 2025 — avg 11 · peak 23Nov 2025 — avg 11 · peak 27Dec 2025 — avg 11 · peak 29Jan 2026 — avg 14 · peak 29Feb 2026 — avg 12 · peak 29Mar 2026 — avg 12 · peak 32Apr 2026 — avg 16 · peak 46May 2026 — avg 16 · peak 39Jun 2026 — avg 13 · peak 31Jul 2026 — avg 14 · peak 31Aug 2026 — avg 12 · peak 26
Monthly average players (source: steamcharts.com) — history via steamcharts.com; live census sampling since Aug 2026.

Price history

$5.99$0.992015-01-012026-08-252015-01-01 — best price $4.992015-06-19 — best price $2.392015-12-01 — best price $4.992016-06-22 — best price $5.992017-05-15 — best price $5.992018-01-16 — best price $5.992018-09-21 — best price $1.192019-02-26 — best price $5.992019-09-16 — best price $5.992020-03-30 — best price $5.992020-11-23 — best price $5.992021-04-05 — best price $5.992021-09-02 — best price $5.992022-01-31 — best price $5.992022-06-28 — best price $5.992022-11-04 — best price $5.992023-05-09 — best price $5.992023-10-03 — best price $5.992024-01-16 — best price $5.992024-04-29 — best price $1.992024-08-26 — best price $2.512024-11-11 — best price $4.992024-12-12 — best price $2.452025-02-10 — best price $1.992025-04-03 — best price $5.992025-05-22 — best price $2.392025-07-28 — best price $2.492025-09-25 — best price $2.992025-11-20 — best price $2.492026-01-06 — best price $2.992026-02-17 — best price $4.992026-04-03 — best price $5.992026-05-19 — best price $2.992026-07-02 — best price $4.992026-08-25 — best price $2.39
Lowest recorded price across tracked stores, per day (census snapshots).

Attention

91492026-05-29 — 59 pageviews2026-06-02 — 67 pageviews2026-06-06 — 64 pageviews2026-06-10 — 62 pageviews2026-06-14 — 60 pageviews2026-06-18 — 66 pageviews2026-06-22 — 61 pageviews2026-06-26 — 88 pageviews2026-06-30 — 49 pageviews2026-07-04 — 59 pageviews2026-07-08 — 59 pageviews2026-07-12 — 59 pageviews2026-07-16 — 59 pageviews2026-07-20 — 77 pageviews2026-07-24 — 75 pageviews2026-07-28 — 67 pageviews2026-08-01 — 51 pageviews2026-08-05 — 69 pageviews2026-08-09 — 49 pageviews2026-08-13 — 55 pageviews2026-08-17 — 56 pageviews2026-08-21 — 72 pageviews2026-08-25 — 66 pageviews2026-08-29 — 60 pageviews2026-09-02 — 75 pageviews2026-09-06 — 64 pageviews2026-09-10 — 54 pageviews2026-09-14 — 76 pageviews2026-09-18 — 66 pageviews2026-09-22 — 75 pageviews2026-09-26 — 73 pageviews2026-09-30 — 52 pageviews2026-10-04 — 67 pageviews2026-10-08 — 68 pageviews
Daily Wikipedia pageviews (attention proxy, census-recorded).

Details

WindowsSingle-playerMulti-playerPvPLAN PvPSteam CloudFamily Sharing

Player tags

RPGGod GameStrategyTacticalIsometricStrategy RPGGrand Strategy

Census log

Computed from census-recorded observations only — dates are observation dates.

Players also track

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Similarity via IGDB.

Wikipedia ↗