The gaming platform Steam set a new record. Over 24 million users were online at the same time. One reason for this is the release of Cyberpunk 2077. But other games are also experiencing positive growth right now.
What happened? On December 12 at around 4:00 PM our time, there were 24,776,635 users online at the same time on Steam. This surpassed the previous record of nearly 24.5 million users from March 2020.
At that time, the platform from Valve primarily benefited from the strong restrictions associated with the coronavirus worldwide. There were no new major titles or highlights occurring in March.
This time, however, the record coincided with the release of the currently most successful game on Steam. And it is likely that this record will be broken again soon.
Cyberpunk 2077 hits instantly, even on Steam
Why is Steam setting the record now? On December 10, Cyberpunk 2077 was released and made an immediate impact on Steam. At peak times, over one million players were online at the same time.
This magical mark has only been reached by a few titles on Steam so far, and Cyberpunk 2077 is the first single-player game ever to achieve this (via PCGamesN). It regularly occupies the number 1 spot in the Steam charts.
But alongside Cyberpunk, other games are also performing well on Steam right now.
Apex Legends starts strong, and Destiny and CS:GO help too
Which games are also doing well? On November 4, the battle royale Apex Legends was released on Steam. It was a surprise success in 2019, but played a lesser role in 2020.
However, the release on Steam went very positively. On the first day, Apex peaked at 88,000 simultaneous players. Since then, nearly 100,000 players have been playing simultaneously almost every day in the currently running Season 7, which our author Jürgen Horn is enjoying a lot.
Another success factor for Steam is Counter-Strike: Global Offensive. The shooter has been one of the most successful titles on the platform since 2016 and got a significant boost when it switched to Free2Play in December 2018. On December 12, more than one million people played CS:GO at peak times, placing the game just behind Cyberpunk.
The third major game in this constellation is Destiny 2. With the new expansion Beyond Light, the game almost matched its all-time record from its release in November 2019. On December 12, nearly 90,000 players were online at peak.
Somewhat less successful than Destiny 2 on the record day were:
- DOTA 2 – 607,000 players
- PUBG – 412,000 players
- Rainbow Six Siege – 108,000 players
- GTA 5 – 142,289 players
All four titles, however, have weaker numbers compared to March 2020.
How significant is the impact of COVID-19? One aspect that likely played a role in the user record is the restrictions due to COVID-19.
These were tightened again in many countries in October, November, and December, leading to more time spent at home. The cold season, which is currently affecting regions like Europe and America, also contributes to more people staying indoors.
Exactly these factors, combined with the aforementioned games, could lead to the user record being broken in the coming days and potentially even today, on December 13. At the moment, at 11:30 AM, significantly more users are active than the previous day.
Multiplayer games are particularly successful on Steam. We will reveal to you which free MMOs had the most players on the platform recently:
These are the 7 largest Free2Play MMOs on Steam at the end of 2020
