Steam records: The 10 games with the highest player numbers

Millions of players use Steam every day, but which games managed to grab the biggest pieces of that pie? We’ll tell you!

Over the years,

Steam has become the largest collection of PC games ever. Every year, thousands and thousands of new titles find their way onto Valve’s platform, but by no means all of them make it into the limelight. Most of them simply disappear behind true blockbusters with thousands of players.

We summarise for you the Steam games with the largest number of players. Among them are a few titles that no one would have expected. The results are based on the statistics from (Steamcharts.com). By the way, the number of players active at the same time was measured here: Our ranking is therefore based on which games were able to captivate the most people in front of the screen at the same time at X point in time.

This article is updated regularly

Last update: 30 May 2022
Newly added: Elden Ring
Removed: Fallout 4
Updated: Ranking updated

For the May 30, 2022 update, a big new addition to the list has settled in, plus some rankings are changing. Steam’s player numbers are steadily increasing and with them the requirements to stay in the top 10. One game had to make way accordingly:

• Place 10: Fallout 4 – 471,955 players

The newcomer, on the other hand, ranks right at number 5 in the top 10, leaving several games behind:

Place 10: Capcom Arcade Stadium

When was the high point?

Capcom Arcade Stadium cheats a little on the ranking. Because it’s not a single game, but a collection of even 32 arcade classics that Capcom released between 1984 and 2001. When you buy the game, however, you only get 1943: The Battle of Midway. All the other titles are available as DLC.
Originally released on 25 May 2021, it reached its current peak of 481,088 players in November 2021. This could be due to the fact that since October 2021, the other games are no longer only available as a pack, but you can also buy them individually. Perfectly suited if you want to relive a classic. And apparently there are a lot of nostalgics out there.

What about now?

The nostalgia didn’t last long, however. For player numbers plummeted faster than in almost any other game. January 2022, the peak was only 387 players. By contrast, at the end of May just 29 people started the game at the same time.

Place 9: Terraria

When was the high point?

If there were Minecraft on Steam, then it would certainly take place in this list. After all, with Terraria its little brother already makes it to 9th place. But it took the indie game quite a long time to do so, because Terraria was actually released back in 2011.

However, the game was improved over time and the final version only celebrated its release on 16 May 2020. It was precisely in this month that the adventure game broke its player record and has since occupied a place in the list of the most played Steam games with 486,918 players. Originally in fourth place, Terraria has now slipped to ninth.

What about now?

Even without this special release, Terraria enjoys enduring popularity. On Steam, daily player numbers rank on a monthly average around 30,000 concurrent players At the same time, the developers also can t let it go despite previous announcements and keep releasing new patches

Place 8: Valheim

When was the high point?

Not only colossal AAA productions, but also small indies can really pack a punch. Metaphorically and literally, because despite its edgy voxel look, the Viking survival game Valheim reached almost 500,000 concurrent active players on Steam in February 2021. This all took place at the Early Access release in February 2021, which gave the small Iron Gate studio a remarkable global success with over six million copies sold.

What about now?

No hype lasts forever, only a fraction of the really big player numbers are still in the game. Between 20,000 and 30,000 players are currently active on average at the same time, which are of course still strong numbers. However, the mood in the community is threatening to tip over, as although there are regular updates these take quite a long time.

Place 7: Cyberpunk 2077

When was the high point?

The years of hype around Cyberpunk 2077 finally culminated in a great release success, which was however also accompanied by much criticism. Although CD Projekt also released the game on GOG and the Epic Store, Cyberpunk 2077 reached over 800,000 simultaneously active Vs.

on Steam on 13 December 2020.

What is the situation now?

Not much is left of the gigantic player numbers by now. In February 2022, the big update 1.5 ensured that at times almost 60,000 players were online at the same time again. In the meantime, however, the numbers have dropped again to an average of around 11,000 players exploring Night City at the same time. Nevertheless, more updates are still to be launched.

Place 6: New World

When was the peak?

After many delays,

New World was released on 28 September 2021, so it is hardly surprising that it peaked in October with a total of 913,027 players . The launch itself, however, proved to be extremely difficult. The fact that news made the rounds that the game could destroy graphics cards did not cast a good light on it either.

What about now?

The success did not last long and since then the game has been on a pure downhill slide. In the month following its release, it had already lost more than half of its players. In December, things didn’t look very rosy either. In the period from 1 to 30 May 2022, it could only boast 28,373 simultaneously logged-in users at its best. Figures that make other games envious. For New World, however, only a small fraction of its former glory.

Place 5: Elden Ring

When was the climax?

That Elden Ring became a successful game is hardly surprising. But that over 950,000 Tarnished would be on the road at the same time in March 2022 was probably rather unexpected. This means that Elden Ring not only surpasses some former bests on this list, but also far surpasses the developer’s previous games. Both Dark Souls 3 and Sekiro had maxed out at around 130,000 concurrent players. We analyse why Elden Ring is so much more successful in the video above.

What about now?

Of course, several months after release, player numbers have dropped significantly. But in May, Elden Ring still came in at a whopping 90,000 players active on average. Apparently, many Tarnished still want to try out new fighting styles or explore the world beyond the main quest because there are still a lot of secrets! Because there are still plenty of secrets waiting there!

Place 4: Dota 2

When was the high point?

The moba Dota 2 is the first game in this list to break the million mark with its record. And that is not without reason, because it is after all the successor to the WarCraft 3 mod Defense of the Ancients, which founded a new genre. For a long time, Dota 2 was also ahead in the player numbers category on Steam, reaching its current peak of an outstanding 1,291,328 players in March 2016, shortly after the big spring cleaning update was released.

What about now?

No question, a player count like that doesn’t happen by accident. Dota 2 is simply played far too often every day and still reaches numbers that others can only dream of. In May, there were still an average of 446,590 players active at the same time time. And it looks like these numbers won’t change much in the foreseeable future.

Place 3: Counter-Strike: Global Offensive

When was the high point?

After Dota, the next title in which Valve itself is involved comes directly in 3rd place. Counter-Strike: Global Offensive grabs a place on the podium. The almost legendary shooter was ranked directly behind Dota 2 for a very, very long time, but was only recently able to overtake the moba. However, it is not quite possible to estimate where this further increase in players came from.

Increasing numbers of CS:GO players have been recorded since February 2020. The shooter reached its  peak of 1,305,714 simultaneously active players  in April 2020. The assumption is that the increased player numbers are related to the quarantine measures during the Corona pandemic.

What about now?

The level of the beginning of 2020 is no longer reached by CS:GO today, but it remains a giant in terms of player numbers. In May, Counter-Strike recorded an average of 566,180 players and in April there were at times even over one million players online at the same time. It seems that the time of the ten-year-old shooter is far from over.

Place 2: Lost Ark

When was the high point?

Lost Ark first appeared in the West on 11 Feb 2022 and immediately took the top 3 by storm. As of February 18, 2022, just a week after release, it has left the competition in the dust with its 1,324,761 concurrent players and taken the second spot of the titles with the most users on Steam.

How about now?

Lost Ark is soaring high, but history has already shown that the rush often drops off sharply so soon after release. This is normal even for MMORPGs. But so far, player numbers still remain in a very high range: In May an average of 477,466 players still played the Korean MMORPG. This is even an increase over the previous two months.

How Lost Ark develops in the future naturally also depends on how well the developers can solve the bot problem. In addition, the regularly released new content must also retain experienced players.

Place 1: Playerunknown’s Battlegrounds

When was the high point?

Winner, winner, chicke… oh you know how it goes. Playerunknown’s Battlegrounds aka PUBG is the undisputed king when it comes to concurrent player numbers on Steam. At its core, it is a multiplayer shooter, but its gameplay is now more commonly referred to as Battle Royale.

The roots of the cult game lie in a mod for Arma 3 put together by developer Brendan Greene (also known as Playerunknown), who didn’t invent Battle Royale as a genre in its own right, but at least made it suitable for the masses.

Even in its Early Access phase from March 2017, the game had ever-increasing player numbers and thus practically single-handedly ensured that games like Fortnite or Apex Legends came into being at all and even long-established genre giants like Battlefield or Call of Duty wanted to jump on the Battle Royale bandwagon. Its colossal record , meanwhile, stands at an incredible 3,236,027 players, which was reached with the final release in January 2018

What about now?

Even though PUBG could once boast an almost unassailable number of concurrently active players, the battle royale is played by significantly fewer people on a daily basis than its two competitors in the top 3. Only 202,874 players  were active in PUBG at the same time on average in May. The trend is also continuing to fall, even though the number of players almost doubled again in January. The reason for this was the switch to a Free2Play system.