The reveal that Thomas the Tank Engine is getting a new video game in 2026 caused quite a stir. People seemed pretty excited at the prospect of controlling the iconic train and his supporting cast in Wonders of Sodor. Unfortunately, that excitement doesn’t appear to have been extended to the game itself, as it’s here, but not many of you seem to have noticed.
Thomas & Friends: Wonders of Sodor launched on Tuesday, a day on which its Steam numbers were incredibly low. Thomas’s first video game on home consoles since 2010, hence the surprising level of hype surrounding its reveal, and it only just managed to breach the 1,000 player threshold on Steam on launch day.
Fewer Than 1,100 People Went To Sodor For Thomas The Tank Engine’s Big Day
There were more than 1,000 of you playing Wonders of Sodor within an hour of its release, and either people continued to filter in and out, or those early adopters remained locked in, as Thomas’s concurrent player count remained in the four-figure bracket throughout most of the evening. It didn’t keep ascending, though, as it peaked at 1,098 players at around 3 pm on Tuesday afternoon, according to SteamDB.
That doesn’t mean, just 24 hours after its arrival, Wonders of Sodor can be labeled a flop. As always, when it comes to using SteamDB as a player count resource, its figures only account for one storefront on a single platform. Despite the viral hype on social media, I don’t think it’s too out of left field to assume that most of the Thomas the Tank Engine game’s players are younger fans playing on consoles.
Maybe All Of The Thomas The Tank Engine Fans Are Playing Wonders Of Sodor Elsewhere
Wonders of Sodor is also available on PlayStation, Xbox, and is coming to Nintendo Switch, my money being on it eventually having its biggest audience on that last one. It’s also going to be a game that likely continues to attract a mid-sized audience over months, maybe even years. Parents of kids, as well as older fans, finding it in the eShop and giving it a try, perhaps when it’s inevitably on sale.
Even though there have been Thomas the Tank Engine games before this, Wonders of Sodor is the first in the series to recreate the entire island the trains call home. Players are given the opportunity to become the trains themselves, ferrying passengers to and fro, visiting iconic landmarks from the show, and experiencing stories seasoned fans will be familiar with, as well as new tales written specifically for the game.
