Only a few days into 2026, PC gaming has already hit a new milestone, with Steam breaking its own record for concurrent players.
According to data from SteamDB, Steam’s all-time peak active player count hit 41,816,052 on Jan. 5, surpassing its October 2025 record of 41,666,455. Notably, 13.4 million of these 41.8 million users were actively playing a game on the platform, indicating that a significant portion of the total were not simply idling.
For comparison, the approximate peak in January last year stood at 39.3 million players. However, when looking further back, the difference becomes even more striking. In January 2024, Steam recorded a peak of 33.6 million players. That’s a growth of more than eight million users in just two years. Pre-pandemic figures were less than half of today’s high.
Steam’s growth over the past five years shows that this surge is not merely a temporary pandemic-era spike, but part of a sustained upward trend. Peak concurrent users rose steadily from around 20 million in early 2020, and even after global restrictions eased, the platform continued to flourish, aside from occasional short-term dips.
This long-term rise suggests that many players who discovered or returned to PC gaming during the stay-at-home period never left. Combined with new users entering the ecosystem each year, Steam’s record-breaking 41.8 million concurrent players reflect a sustained expansion in global interest rather than a short-lived pandemic effect.
Steam’s success can be attributed to its expansive game catalogue, regular seasonal sales, and continued support for both blockbuster and indie titles. The platform’s availability across Windows, Linux, and macOS has also helped broaden its appeal. Not to forget, the launch of the Steam Deck in 2022 further contributed to growth by making PC gaming more accessible in a portable, console-like form factor.
10 Steam games with the highest concurrent players
Here’s a list of the biggest Steam games that contributed to the platform’s all-time high in January 2026.
| Game name | Concurrent players |
|---|---|
| Counter-Strike 2 | 1,611,978 |
| Dota 2 | 815,765 |
| PUBG: Battlegrounds | 709,468 |
| ARC Raiders | 466,372 |
| Rust | 208,463 |
| Apex Legends | 174,089 |
| Bongo Cat | 163,974 |
| Stardew Valley | 140,160 |
| Delta Force | 138,411 |
| Wallpaper Engine | 131,234 |
