Summary
- Call of Duty had its third-worst month ever on Steam with only 62,010 players in January.
- Player count decline continued despite Black Ops 6 Season 2 launch.
- Skill-based matchmaking, unpopular maps, cheating, and costly cosmetics led to PC player decline.
Call of Duty has officially had its third-worst month ever since it launched on Steam back in October 2022.
The number of players playing Black Ops 6, Warzone, and Modern Warfare 3 has been steadily declining since its launch and it comes from a culmination of issues that have left the community deeply unhappy.
Call Of Duty Decline Sees Its Third-Worst Month Ever On Steam
Over the last 30 days, or the whole of January so far, Call of Duty has seen an average of 62,010 players on Steam, according to SteamDB. Only twice in the game’s history has a month had fewer players, once in July 2023 (60,480) and again in September 2023 (55,140).
The drop in player count is made even more surprising, given that Black Ops 6’s second season has just launched. While Season 1’s launch saw a steady increase in players, at least for a while, numbers have plateaued since the launch of Season 2.
It represents a growing problem that has been prevalent in Black Ops 6, with a new player complaint arising almost every single day.
While some have been less egregious, there have been genuine concerns levied towards Activision and Treyarch this time around. The use of AI art, given the company’s turnover, was a big one, but further in-game issues have continued to seriously frustrate.
Skill-based matchmaking has been one of the biggest bugbears, as it so often has across previous Call of Duty iterations, but unpopular maps, rampant cheating, and expensive cosmetics have all played their part in the game’s PC downfall.
While numbers evidently continue to decline on PC, Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella shared that Black Ops 6 was the “top-selling game on Xbox and PlayStation this quarter” and that the title “saw more players in its launch quarter than any other paid release in the franchise’s history.” Much of this can likely be attributed to Xbox Game Pass subscribers dipping their toes into the game as part of the service.
- Released
-
October 25, 2024
- ESRB
-
Mature 17+ // Blood and Gore, Intense Violence, Suggestive Themes, Strong Language, Use of Drugs
- OpenCritic Rating
-
Strong