Steam is starting off the new year in the best way possible: by breaking its own concurrent user record. Two days into 2022, Valve’s game marketplace had 27,942,036 simultaneous users, with 8.2 million of those users being actively in-game. This was roughly 557,000 more users logged in than in November 2021, the month holding the previous record.
Steam’s upward trend started in January 2020, months before the COVID-19 pandemic led to self-isolation around the globe. On February 2, 2020, a record 18,801,944 players were logged in, with that record being broken several times since. Numbers breached 20 million for the first time in March 2020. Given how much of the past two years has been spent in the comfort–or discomfort–of our own homes, it makes sense that Steam would continue growing in popularity.
Valve recently shared the best-selling Steam titles of 2021, which included DOTA 2, Naraka Bladepoint, New World, Dead By Daylight, Destiny 2, Battlefield 2042, Apex Legends, Valheim, Counter-Strike, Grand Theft Auto V, Rainbow Six Siege, and PUBG Battlegrounds. The most-played games have also been announced, and are organized by peak concurrent players and “grouped into thresholds based on the number of players.” In particular, Valheim, New World, DOTA 2, Rust, CS:GO, Halo Infinite, Apex Legends, PUBG, Cyberpunk 2077, and GTA V all saw peaks of over 200,000 concurrent players.
Despite tidal waves of negative press upon release, CD Project Red’s Cyberpunk 2077 took the crown as the most-played Steam game in 2021. Compared to the console version of the game, players have seen fewer issues with the PC version. While it isn’t entirely free from bugs, the dev team is continuing to release patches, and modders have also found new ways to keep the game fresh. Cyberpunk 2077 was also the first single-player game on Steam to reach over 1 million concurrent players in December 2020.
Valve’s handheld Steam Deck console is scheduled for release in February 2022 barring any more supply chain issues.
