Steam sets an all-new concurrent user record of 27.1 million

It's happened again: Steam has set another new concurrent user record, this time clocking up a staggering 27,182,165 players earlier today.

According to SteamDB, of those 27.1 million users, 7.8 million were actively in-game and playing something – which is also a brand new record for Steam, too.

It's an incredible achievement for Valve's PC platform, not least because many of the prior records set in 2020 and 2021 occurred during national coronavirus lockdowns across the world.

Steam's upward trend began in January 2020 when the world began to self-isolate at the start of the COVID-19 crisis. On February 2, Steam's existing record of 18,537,490 users – set in January 2018 – was surpassed, smashing the existing record by an impressive 300,000 to peak at 18,801,944 players. 

It's gone on to be broken several times since, including a weekend in March which saw numbers breach 20 million for the first time, and then 22 million just a week later. We saw 24.7 million users peak in December 2020, and then 26.5 million in February 2021.  

The latest record – which was set in April 2021 – stood at 26.9 million users.

As for the games we're playing? The titles that have been keeping us busy include CS:GO – which itself has seen a concurrent peak of almost a million players today – as well as Dota 2, New World, Halo Infinite, Team Fortress 2, Rust, Apex Legends, MIR4, GTA 5, and Farming Simulator 22.

ICYMI, Halo Infinite – which has yet to release in full and with only a beta version of its multiplayer available to play right now – is already the most-played Xbox Game Studios title of all time on Steam. However, players are already reporting that they're encountering cheaters using aimbots and wallhacks to cheat their way to victory. 

"Let me turn off cross-play until you guys can get an actual anti-cheat implemented," one player implored to developer 343 Industries.

Looking for something new to get stuck into? Here are the best PC games right now.