Steam Surges to 39 Million Concurrent Users as Path of Exile 2 and Wonder Competitors Capture Massive Audiences

Gaming seems to have its own Barbenheimer moment this weekend with both Marvel Rivals and Path of Exile 2’s early access attracting a record number of players on Steam.

Throughout the year, Steam has consistently been shattering its own concurrent user records, with 33 million individuals logging into Valve‘s platform at the start of the year. This was quickly surpassed by nearly 37 million gamers who either played or simply browsed at the same time during the late summer. Now, this record has been impressively broken again, as SteamDB estimates that approximately 39,200,000 users were online simultaneously earlier today.

This massive influx was largely drawn in by familiar titles, with Counter-Strike 2 consistently boasting over a million concurrent players on its own, while Dota 2, GTA 5, PUBG, and Rust all saw hundreds of thousands of players joining in over the weekend. However, this significant surge could be attributed to the debut of a new gaming duo.

Marvel Rivals already recorded one of the largest free-to-play launches in the platform’s history, and this success continued into the weekend, with the new hero shooter reaching a peak of 450,000 players in a 24-hour period. Path of Exile 2 was also a huge success upon its launch, and has soared to over 530,000 concurrent players, entering into rarefied air for any game.

Could we see 40 million concurrent players by the year’s end? Indiana Jones and the Large Circle is the only major title set to release, yet I wouldn’t rule it out, particularly as the holiday season approaches and countless others seek a reason to avoid family gatherings.

In the meantime, check out our upcoming video games of 2025 and beyond list to see what lies ahead.