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

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.

11
playing now
88%
positive of 447 reviews
Very Positive
steam rating
100,000–200,000
owners (SteamSpy est.)
75/100
IGDB user rating (39 ratings)
gold
deck/linux tier (ProtonDB)
$4.99
steam price (US)

11 players in-game as of 2026-08-30 06:00 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

Insufficient data
  • · Not enough review history collected yet to judge health.
  • · Top 48% of 6,192 RPG games in the census by review count.
Estimated sales: 8.9k–20k copies

Review-multiple estimate from 447 total reviews — how this is computed.

Current store prices

lowest across shops (ITAD)$2.39-60%

Deal snapshots via CheapShark, refreshed daily.

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

12-month high $5.99 · on sale 44 of 58 observed days (census price snapshots)

Players online

1832026-08-11 20:00 — 18 players2026-08-12 11:00 — 7 players2026-08-13 03:00 — 16 players2026-08-13 19:00 — 18 players2026-08-14 11:00 — 10 players2026-08-15 03:00 — 7 players2026-08-15 18:00 — 14 players2026-08-16 10:00 — 12 players2026-08-17 02:00 — 6 players2026-08-17 18:00 — 14 players2026-08-18 10:00 — 10 players2026-08-19 02:00 — 8 players2026-08-19 17:00 — 11 players2026-08-20 09:00 — 6 players2026-08-21 01:00 — 11 players2026-08-21 17:00 — 11 players2026-08-22 08:00 — 16 players2026-08-23 00:00 — 13 players2026-08-23 16:00 — 11 players2026-08-24 08:00 — 8 players2026-08-25 00:00 — 7 players2026-08-25 15:00 — 13 players2026-08-26 08:00 — 3 players2026-08-27 00:00 — 9 players2026-08-27 16:00 — 17 players2026-08-28 06:00 — 7 players2026-08-28 22:00 — 13 players2026-08-29 14:00 — 16 players2026-08-30 06:00 — 11 players
Concurrent players, hourly average, last 30 days (census samples).

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

103442026-05-29 — 59 pageviews2026-06-01 — 103 pageviews2026-06-04 — 67 pageviews2026-06-07 — 79 pageviews2026-06-10 — 62 pageviews2026-06-13 — 75 pageviews2026-06-16 — 76 pageviews2026-06-19 — 65 pageviews2026-06-22 — 61 pageviews2026-06-25 — 50 pageviews2026-06-28 — 85 pageviews2026-07-01 — 50 pageviews2026-07-04 — 59 pageviews2026-07-07 — 50 pageviews2026-07-10 — 53 pageviews2026-07-13 — 67 pageviews2026-07-16 — 59 pageviews2026-07-19 — 46 pageviews2026-07-22 — 60 pageviews2026-07-25 — 60 pageviews2026-07-28 — 67 pageviews2026-07-31 — 50 pageviews2026-08-03 — 75 pageviews2026-08-06 — 78 pageviews2026-08-09 — 49 pageviews2026-08-12 — 60 pageviews2026-08-15 — 57 pageviews2026-08-18 — 67 pageviews2026-08-21 — 72 pageviews2026-08-24 — 56 pageviews2026-08-26 — 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 ↗