The World's Most Played & Popular Games (2022)
Games with the Highest Peak Concurrent Player Count in 2022
10. Most Played Game in 2022 on Steam: Apex Legends, 411,182players
Apex Legends, developed by Respawn, sprang out of nowhere and quickly began to dominate the battle royale genre. It successfully dethroned Fortnite and PUBG as the most played and most viewed multiplayer games for a brief while because of its ideal combination of engaging gameplay, AAA production quality, and a free-to-play economic model.
The number of players has undoubtedly decreased since its debut
month when a record 2 million people played at once, but its community has
stayed rather sizable despite the occasional spike along the road. It is
reasonable to assume that Apex has dominated the genre and established
itself there for the foreseeable future.
Until now, the top player count for Apex Legends on Steam was 411,182 in 2022. We wouldn't be surprised if the sum was just shy of a million on a good day with console figures included.
9. PUBG, which received 696,704 plays in 2022
Despite the battle royale genre getting overrun by imitation games, PUBG still commands a sizable following. It was the game that set off a frenzy that saw the whole online gaming scene transformed over the previous few years.
Most notably, of course, Fortnite by Epic Games was both a copy and a replacement for it. As Fortnite gained popularity, PUBG's premium model and slow console release caused it to fall behind very rapidly.
Despite the battle royale genre getting overrun by imitation games, PUBG still commands a sizable following. It was the game that set off a frenzy that saw the whole online gaming scene transformed over the previous few years.
Most notably, of course, Fortnite by Epic Games was both a copy and a replacement for it. As Fortnite gained popularity, PUBG's premium model and slow console release caused it to fall behind very rapidly.
8. Dota 2: 786,118 People Will Play It in 2022
Dota 2 is another game whose concurrent player numbers have increased year over year. The rise of this genre actually appears to be at odds with the widespread belief that multiplayer online battle arenas are in decline. Even while MOBA games aren't growing as quickly as they once did, don't for a second believe that they're going away any time soon.
The genre's successor, DOTA 2, continues to outperform the majority of the opposition. Despite being operational for almost a decade, it has consistently reached and occasionally exceeded a million concurrent gamers during the past year.
Similar to CS: GO, its esports scene has fostered a dedicated player base that isn't in a rush to switch to another IP. DOTA 2 is also quite popular in the east, especially in China, where a major portion of its player base is located.
7. The 1,01 million-player Counter-Strike: GO game in 2022
CS: GO is the FPS that just won't give up. With over 1.3 million players concurrently, April 2020 witnessed the biggest numbers ever. In addition to being a very outstanding number on its own, the game has been producing results of this kind for eight years.
As for this year thus far, CS: GO peaked in April at 1,013,237.
CS: GO has maintained its lead over more recent releases because of a robust esports scene and the brand strength of a series that has been around since the late 1990s. The game continues to be popular, particularly in Europe, with nations like Russia making significant contributions to the growth of the total active population.
6. Lost Ark: 1,324,761 Popular Video Games in 2022
Lost Ark, the sole 2022 release on our list, debuted back in February and has since proven to be quite popular. In its first month, the 2.5D fantasy MMORPG had an astounding 1.3 million concurrent users, but unlike other games like New World, Lost Ark has maintained its pace. With an incredible 800,000+ concurrent players registered over the previous 30 days, according to Steam Charts, there hasn't been much of a drop-off at all.
5. The 1.4 million+ most popular games in 2022 will be Minecraft
Even though Minecraft is an unstoppable force, we'll admit that our mentioned statistic is a little bit misleading.
Technically, according to our metrics, Apex Legends should rank above Minecraft. The fact is, even though we only have statistics from 2015, we can be sure that the number of players on Minecraft has grown dramatically over the previous four years. For evidence, all you need to do is look at its monthly active users (MAU).
DOTA 2 had an estimated MAU of 11.9 million at the beginning of 2019, for comparison and to give some context as to why we've elevated Minecraft without a more recent concurrent stat. Ten times as many people play Minecraft.
Our estimate of 1.4 million concurrent users comes from a Polygon article from 2015 when the MAU for Minecraft was thought to be under 40 million. It's hardly impossible that Minecraft currently occasionally sees more than three times that amount of concurrent users.
4. Nearly 4 Million People Will Play These Games on Roblox in 2022
Since its debut in 2006, particularly in the last five or so years, Roblox has experienced a meteoric rise in popularity. In 2016, CEO David Baszuski boasted of having 700,000 continuous gamers and that the 1 million player mark was not far away. In the year 2020, 4 million gamers watched the 7th Annual Bloxy Awards on Roblox simultaneously.
We're convinced Roblox deserves to be ranked number 4 on this list, even though the novelty of the event slightly distorts the concurrent tally for the sake of this list. In fact, according to what we understand, Roblox regularly experiences over 1 million concurrent users throughout the year, even outside of special events.
3. Crossfire: 8 Million People Will Play It in 2022
Most of our readers probably hadn't heard of one of the most popular video games in the world until only a short while ago. A Counter-Strike clone called Crossfire is a monster in Korea and is about to make waves in the west.
A recent agreement between Microsoft and the Korean game developer Smilegate Entertainment would see the release of Crossfire X on Microsoft platforms only in 2021.
We're not sure if the concurrent statistics in that sequel will remain the same, though. It would truly depend on if the future version of the game is being developed particularly for the western market or whether it will be released globally.
If it wants to equal Smilegate's estimates of 8 million continuous gamers, it will have a lot to live up to. It's important to note that this statistic has been cited for several years, thus it's not quite obvious how big the game's current community is.
2. League of Legends Will Have 8 Million Players by 2022
The MOBA genre is still very much alive, as seen by the continuous success of DOTA 2, but League of Legends stats totally demolish those. A little more than 8 million players play League of Legends every day, according to Riot Games.
That is completely insane and ought to be at the top of this list just based on consistency, but because we've set the measure to peak concurrently, we'll resist the urge.
League of Legends following, which regularly turns out in the millions to watch professional events online, has once again been assisted by a thriving esports ecosystem. FunPlus Phoenix's victory over G2 Esports was seen by 1.7 million people, shattering Twitch's concurrent viewership records for the League of Legends World Championships 2019.
1. Fortnite: 12.3 Million People Will Play It in 2022
Whether you love it or detest it, Fortnite must rank among the most influential video games ever created. The battle royale video game from Epic Games has completely reevaluated what it takes to create and maintain a successful "live" service-style video game.
Fortnite always evolves into a new version of itself with new features and gimmicks as new trends emerge. It is essentially a fresh game every month because of the content from the battle pass. Working with musicians and famous people has helped it maintain its appeal and become engrained in popular culture.
For instance, gamers gathered to witness Travis Scott premiere a new song at the Astronomical Concert in 2020, when Fortnite reached a peak of 12.3 million concurrent players.
