Three years after release, Red Dead Redemption 2 is still hitting new concurrent player peaks on Steam

Red Dead Redemption 2 just reached a new peak concurrent player count on Steam.

Yesterday on January 9, as first reported by Rockstar Intel, Red Dead Redemption 2 reached a new concurrent player record on Steam. As you can see via SteamDB's tracking info, Rockstar's prequel smashed past 69,134 players, steadily building up over the previous few days to reach the new milestone.

This is the biggest Red Dead Redemption 2 has ever been on Steam, since it launched over three years ago in late 2019. In fact, the new concurrent player record has far surpassed the launch window figures for the sequel, which peaked at 55,271 players in December 2019, roughly a month after the game first launched.

What's intriguing about this new player record for Red Dead Redemption 2 is that there isn't any particular logic behind it. One could point to Steam's bonanza Black Friday 2022 sale as having driven sales for the game, which was discounted by a whopping 70% during the sale, but it's hardly enough to drive tens of thousands of players to the game for the first time.

This new figure even comes after Rockstar announced that there would be no more significant updates for the Red Dead Online portion of Red Dead Redemption 2, making the record even more confounding. That the developer has deliberately turned away from the live service section of the game to focus on GTA 6 should've surely marked a downward trend for concurrent players for Red Dead Redemption 2.

Then again, perhaps Rockstar fans are getting so antsy about the wait for the eventual GTA 6 that they're flocking back to Red Dead Redemption 2 to tide them over.

Check out our guide to games like Red Dead Redemption 2 if you're after another tale set in the Wild West.