What just happened? Steam broke its own record for the highest number of concurrent players over the weekend when more than 34 million users logged onto the platform simultaneously. The new benchmark broke Steam’s former largest figure, set in January 2024, when the digital storefront reported over 33 million concurrent users.
The numbers come from SteamDB, which claims that 11,146,564 users out of 34,649,583 were actively playing a game when the record was set on Sunday. The title that contributed the most number of players during the record period was Valve’s free-to-play shooter, Counter-Strike 2, which registered 1.4 million concurrents.
Another free Valve game, DOTA 2, came in at number two with more than 727,000 players in the last 24 hours. PUBG: BATTLEGROUNDS with more than 638,000 players, Apex Legends with over 454,000 players, and Helldivers 2 with 431,000+ players rounded out the top five.
Some of the other games that also contributed handsomely to the record include popular titles like GTA V, Cyberpunk 2077, Elden Ring, and Baldur’s Gate 3, all of which had more than 100,000 concurrent players. The wildly popular Pokémon-style survival RPG Palworld, which sold 6 million copies within the first six days of its release, was another major contributor to the record, with more than 250,000 players.
Steam has long been the default go-to digital storefront for PC gamers, but its concurrent userbase started climbing exactly four years ago in March 2020 when the pandemic-induced lockdowns ensured that a large number of people had enough free time to spend hours playing video games. While the record for February 2020 was 19.1 million concurrent players, the number spiked to 23.6 million the following month, thanks at least in part to the global lockdowns.
The rest of this year is expected to be even more exciting for Steam users, with a number of much-awaited titles set to hit the platform. The list includes the first-person shooter survival horror game S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2: Heart of Chernobyl, which will be the first game in the franchise since the release of Call of Pripyat in 2009. Some of the other titles that are expected to hit Steam in the coming months include the likes of Homeworld 3, Hades II, Manor Lords, Stormgate, and more.
