It’s fair to say that 2017 is the year of PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds, as we’ve watched the title grow from alpha to full release. It seems to be capping off the year on a high, as the title has managed to top 3 million concurrent players on Steam.
PUBG’s rise to prominence has been nothing short of astounding, from it toppling Dota 2’s number one spot on Steam’s top concurrent players chart back in early September, to smash its all-time record of 1,291,328 players just two weeks later.
Now, just after its full PC launch on December 20, SteamDB has revealed that the title has managed to hit 3,106,358 concurrent players on Steam alone, a new all-time high for the platform. Of course, this isn’t accounting for the sizeable player base built up on Xbox One since it released on the console December 12.
PUBG growth compared to other games on Steam https://t.co/UncfgwHmr4 pic.twitter.com/UPkM1zQMsL
— Steam Database (@SteamDB) December 29, 2017
This does mark a slightly slower growth than September to mid-October, where PUBG managed to double its concurrent player base by one million, but another million in the space of two-and-a-half months isn’t bad for a game that has only been available to the public for nine months total.
Another record PUBG seems to have secured is a total of 1.5 million players banned through renown anti-cheat service BattlEye, however players are still complaining about cheating being a problem in the title, from insanely accurate shots to the more unusual movement-increasing hacks.
KitGuru Says: It’s still early days for the title, with plenty of room for it to breach the 4 or even 5 million barriers. This is provided that PUBG Corp. and Bluehole can keep on top of the cheaters as best as possible, but there is a degree of leniency as any popular competitive game will face the same challenge. Are you one of the 3 million+ concurrent players? Have you recently jumped in on the Xbox One version?