New CCU Record on Steam Thanks to Marvel Rivals, Delta Force and Path of Exile 2

For the first time ever, more than 39 million users were simultaneously online on Steam, a new record for Valve's distribution platform. Last week's releases of Path of Exile 2 (Early Access), Marvel Rivals and Delta Force attracted large numbers of players.

On 8 December 2024 (Sunday), Steam surpassed 39 million concurrent active users for the first time (in-game peak: 12,143,901), driven by a particularly strong week of releases. Prior to December 2024, the previous record was set in September 2024 (Steam CCU: 38,367,277; in-game peak CCU: 12,270,218). Last year, the highest peak CCU was 33,598,520 in March 2023, and five years before that, in February 2019, the peak was 17,615,173. The growth of the distribution platform continues to be impressive.

Several major game launches are among the reasons for the high CCUs in recent days. NetEase Games' free-to-play team-based PvP super hero shooter Marvel Rivals reached 480,990 CCU on Steam alone. The game is also available on the Epic Games Store, PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X|S. In 72 hours, the game had over ten million players across all platforms - although NetEase did not provide any information on platform distribution. Speaking of NetEase. The more than three-year-old Naraka: Bladepoint (Battle Royale) also continues to perform well in the CCU charts (317,932), thanks in part to a collaboration with CD Projekt Red and The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt.

The Early Access version of Path of Exile 2 has reached 578,569 concurrent active users, making it the 15th highest CCU on Steam overall. The game, which is only accessible through paid support packs, was launched on 6 December. With the game also available via its own launcher, on the Epic Games Store and on PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X|S, the CCUs are likely to be significantly higher. The action role-playing game saw over a million key redemptions shortly before launch and, unsurprisingly, suffered server issues at launch. Path of Exile 2 is set to go free-to-play after Early Access. Its predecessor, which had a maximum of 229,337 CCUs on Steam, is free-to-play. The game was developed by New Zealand-based Grinding Gear Games, which was acquired by Tencent in May 2018.

Talking of Tencent, Delta Force from Team Jade and TiMi Studio Group (owned by Tencent) was launched as a free-to-play title on 4th December. On Sunday, it peaked at 118,964 on CCU. The team-based tactical shooter is currently only available for PC, but can also be downloaded from the Epic Games Store and the game's official website. Mobile and console versions will follow.

Indiana Jones and the Great Circle launched on Friday in Advanced Access for buyers of the Premium Edition (€100), with a CCU peak of almost 6,700 on Sunday. On Monday, the Standard Edition was released and the CCU shot up to 8,148 - a figure that is likely to be surpassed today. However, it should be noted that the title is now included in Game Pass for PC and Game Pass Ultimate for Xbox consoles.

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