Steam Sets New Record – Peak Online Exceeds 40 Million Players for the First Time in Platform History

Following the explosive release of the fantasy action game Monster Hunter Wilds from Capcom, the digital distribution service Steam has set a new personal record for the number of simultaneously online users.

Image Source: Valve

Let us recall that at the end of last week, on February 23, official and unofficial statistics recorded a figure of more than 39.9 million concurrent Steam users.

As it became known, on March 2 at about 17:00 Moscow time, the peak online Steam reached 40,263,966 people. According to SteamDB, the result was even slightly higher – 40,270,997 users.

Image source: SteamDB

Along with the new overall record, Steam also broke its peak online user count for the game, reaching 12.7 million, according to SteamDB. The previous best was 12.5 million (set in August).

The most popular games at the time of the Steam record were Counter-Strike 2 (1.75 million concurrent players on March 2), Monster Hunter Wilds (1.35 million), PUBG: Battlegrounds (0.82 million), and Dota 2 (0.65 million).

Monster Hunter Wilds has surpassed the peak online of previous games in the series by a wide margin (Image source: Frill on Steam)

For comparison: Steam noted 20 million concurrent users less than five years ago, in March 2020. The platform reached its peak online of 30 million people in the fall of 2022.

On Monday, February 24, the large-scale demo festival “Games to Be” (Steam Next Fest) started on Steam. Today, March 2, is its last full day – the event will end on the 3rd at 21:00 Moscow time.