'PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds' Breaks Steam's All-Time Player Count Record

By Edward Leano, Christian Post Contributor Tuesday, September 19, 2017

"PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds" smashes through the previous Steam record for the number of players online at one time for a game, as more than 1.3 million "PUBG" players outnumbered "Dota 2's" top figure on Saturday, Sep.16.

A few weeks ago, the "Battle Royale" inspired shooter briefly edged out Steam's top game, Valve's own "Dota 2," in terms of current online users. The survival game's more than 800,000 players just barely beat the current number of "Dota 2" players online, before settling back in number two.

The situation last Saturday, Sep. 16, was another matter. By the count of the team behind "PUBG," the game had 1,3242,857 players online at the same time, becoming a new record for the number of concurrent players for a game on Steam, ever.

This figure also convincingly beats out the peak figure for "Dota 2," the previous record holder. "Dota 2" had 1,295,114 players online at one time at its peak, as shown in the "PUBG" team's tweet last weekend.

The game creator thanked all the players of "PUBG," as well as the rest of the team of Bluehole working on the game, while claiming the title of "Highest peak player count" on Steam. The survival game beat out "Dota 2's" peak by more than 48,000 players.

While the game is still a work in progress, according to The Verge, the compelling survival mechanics and last-man-standing gameplay propelled "PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds" to the top of Steam's charts even before its upcoming console launch.

The game already sold 10 million copies for the PC via Steam since March, and its audience only looks to grow even larger with an Xbox One release coming later this year.

The video below shows a few in-game scenes from "PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds," now in early access. The game is set to come out to the Xbox One as a Microsoft exclusive later, according to game designer Brendan Greene's announcement during this year's E3. The console launch is currently slated for "late 2017" as of this time.