The original DayZ mod was released in 2012 to near-instant popularity and, come December, it'll be ten years since the standalone game entered early access on Steam. Originally launched in a pretty barebones state, the idea was always to build-out DayZ over the years to come and Bohemia Interactive has done just that: with a sizeable patch last week leading to the game's largest number of concurrent players ever: 69,449, per Steamdb.
To briefly dig into the numbers, DayZ was hitting up to 45,000 concurrents back when it was first released, though from 2015 until late 2018 its player numbers seem to be in a managed decline (with a few odd spikes). But from 2019 onwards the game's ongoing popularity with big streamers like Shroud, along with judicious use of free weekends and a couple of Humble Bundle appearances, has seen player counts rise and keep on rising: I believe the previous peak before this was on January 19, 2023, at around 63,000 players.
