Steam Hits 40M Concurrent Players: Monster Hunter Wilds Boosts Numbers

Steam, the leading digital game distributor for PC gamers, has shattered its own record for concurrent users, reaching an unprecedented peak of over 40 million players. This remarkable milestone was achieved over a weekend that coincided with the launch of Monster Hunter Wilds on February 28, with Steam registering a staggering 40,270,997 simultaneous users, surpassing its previous high of 39.9 million set in February 2025.

According to SteamDB, Steam's concurrent user record, often seen as a benchmark of Valve's platform success, has been consistently broken almost every month since May 2024. The concurrent peak has surged from 35.5 million users to 40.2 million in just over six months. While this figure includes idle players who have Steam running but are not actively using it, the number of users engaged in games has also reached a new high, increasing from 12.5 million to 12.8 million.

Throughout 2024, Steam experienced significant spikes in player peaks, breaking records twice in March and again in July. The latest peak is largely attributed to the release of Monster Hunter Wilds, which alone saw a 24-hour concurrent peak of 1.38 million players. Additionally, other popular titles like Counter-Strike 2, PUBG, Dota 2, and Marvel Rivals also contributed to the surge, with 24-hour peaks of 1.7 million, 819,541, 657,780, and 268,283 players respectively.

Despite its popularity, Monster Hunter Wilds has received a 'mixed' user review rating on Steam, prompting Capcom to release official guidance on addressing PC performance issues. Capcom has also teased early details of Monster Hunter Wilds Title Update 1, which will introduce an endgame social hub for players.

To assist players embarking on their Monster Hunter Wilds journey, resources are available covering what the game doesn't explicitly explain, a comprehensive guide to all 14 weapon types, an ongoing walkthrough, and a multiplayer guide on how to play with friends. For those who participated in the open betas, there's also guidance on transferring your Monster Hunter Wilds Beta character to the full game.

IGN's review of Monster Hunter Wilds awarded it an 8/10, praising the game for refining the series' mechanics in intelligent ways to deliver highly engaging combat, though noting a lack of significant challenge.