Summary
- Call of Duty on Steam is down to pre-Black Ops 6 numbers in just two months, indicating a significant player drop.
- Black Ops 6 peak player count dropped to levels not seen since October 2024, with a drastic reduction compared to Modern Warfare 3.
- Black Ops 6 peak player count dropped 79 percent in just two months, highlighting a rapid decline attributed to various issues like microtransactions.
Call of Duty: Black Ops 6’s spectacular fall from grace is continuing. Last week, we reported that Activision’s latest title, one it called the “most successful in series history,” had lost almost half of its players in two months, and it appears that the mass exodus shows no sign of slowing down.
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According to SteamDB, just two months in, Call of Duty on Steam is down to its pre-Black Ops 6 numbers.
It Took Modern Warfare 3 A Year To Drop This Low
Yesterday, Call of Duty on Steam, which includes Black Ops 6, Warzone, and Modern Warfare 3, hit a peak 24-hour player count of 66,349. You have to go back as far as October 23, 2024, to find the last time it was that low. That was before Black Ops 6 launched. Given that a percentage of these 66,000 players are likely playing Warzone or MW3, it’s a damning indictment for Black Ops 6.
What’s even more interesting to note is that it took almost a full year for Modern Warfare 3 to drop as low as Black Ops 6 is right now. Modern Warfare 3 launched on November 10, 2023. It maintained an average peak player count of around 80,000 players for most of its life cycle, dropping to a then-low 67,536 players on September 11— still not as low as Black Ops 6 was yesterday. You have to go all that way back to October 16 last year for it to achieve that feat, when the Call of Duty Steam launcher hit 62,982 players.
It’s also worth noting that Modern Warfare 3 had far fewer players to lose than Black Ops 6 ever did. The previous entry in the franchise peaked at around 191,000 players, whereas Black Ops 6 hit over 315,000. It means that Modern Warfare’s peak dropped 67 percent from November 2023 to October 2024, but Black Ops 6’s dropped 79 percent in just two months.
Modern Warfare’s peak dropped 67 percent from November 2023 to October 2024, but Black Ops 6’s dropped 79 percent in just two months.
It’s fascinating to see how quickly sentiment has turned around this year’s Call of Duty title.
It launched to a glowing critical reception, sitting at an 83 on Opencritic, but feelings quickly changed. Skill-based matchmaking was, once again, one of the first issues to surface, but expensive microtransactions, boring events, and AI artwork have all likely played a part in Black Ops 6’s downfall.
Forced to go rogue. Hunted from within. This is Call of Duty: Black Ops 6.
Developed by Treyarch and Raven, Black Ops 6 is a spy action thriller set in the early 90s, a period of transition and upheaval in global politics, characterized by the end of the Cold War and the rise of the United States as a single superpower. With a mind-bending narrative, and unbound by the rules of engagement, this is signature Black Ops.
The Black Ops 6 Campaign provides dynamic moment-to-moment gameplay that includes a variety of play spaces with blockbuster set pieces and action-packed moments, high-stakes heists, and cloak-and-dagger spy activity.
In a best-in-class Multiplayer experience, players will test their skills across 16 new maps at launch, including 12 core 6v6 maps and 4 Strike maps that can be played 2v2 or 6v6.
Black Ops 6 also marks the epic return of Round-Based Zombies, the fan-favorite mode where players will take down hordes of the undead in two brand-new maps at launch. Post-launch, players can look forward to even more exciting maps and groundbreaking experiences dropping into both Multiplayer and Zombies.