This weekend, CSGO proved that it’s still an unrivalled gaming titan, securing a peak player count on Steam of 1,320,219 users. It’s a milestone that comes more than ten years after the game was released, and it positively eclipsed the previous record that was in place – which was also set by the dramatically popular first-person shooter.
While other titles have secured a larger peak – with PUBG holding the all-time record – none of them boast the consistency that CSGO does. When PUBG went free-to-play last year, it pulled in a peak player count that exceeded 3.2 million users, and given that the second-place title sits with Lost Ark at 1.32 million, it seems highly unlikely that the record will be beaten anytime soon.
He’s the GOAT!
As CSGO set an all-new record for the peak player count on the game, one of the biggest esports tournaments in the space, IEM Katowice, wrapped up in a remarkable fashion. It was an incredible, record-setting event in itself, and it absolutely contributed to the hype surrounding CSGO this weekend.
In terms of recent concurrency, almost nothing comes close to CSGO. Over the last few days, gamers have been tracking the rapid growth of Hogwarts Legacy, which for a while, looked as though it would contend with CSGO’s numbers.
Hogwarts Legacy debuted on the 10th of February, and since then, it has risen rapidly up every chart it’s connected to, from streaming viewership to sales, and from player concurrency to the number of protests that have been raised online to defy the game itself.
That’s a conversation for another day.
Fortunately for CSGO, it’s a multiplayer-only title that’ll remain appreciated and popular for a very long time to come, while single-player epics like Hogwarts Legacy will effectively die out and dwindle – at least until the inevitable DLC arrives, of course. We’re thinking a Quidditch DLC would bring the wizarding title back up to its record of 879,000 concurrent players in a fairly swift fashion.
For more Insider Gaming news, check out our coverage of Call of Duty 2023, which is, as it turns out, a real thing.
