While there’s been no shortage of games released over the past few years, you might be surprised to learn that the majority of the most played games in 2023 are actually much older. Here, we’re recapping the top 10, which we’ve based on data provided by various analytics sites, including activeplayer.io, statista, and mmo-population.
Editor’s note: We updated this article as of May 10, 2023 to accurately reflect the most up-to-date player count data available. Additionally, the metric used to rank games on this list has recently been changed from peak concurrent players to average monthly active players. Twinfinite believes this better indicates the most played games of the current year. Still, do note that these figures are not official and are only estimates. Also, certain games are likely to appear more popular than others purely because they are available on a greater number of platforms — especially those which have mobile releases.
10. Valorant – 22 Million
Riot Games’ first IP outside the League of Legends universe has been an overwhelming success since its launch in June, 2020. Despite facing stiff competition from the likes of Counter-Strike: GO and Overwatch, Valorant has forged its own path — ironically, by borrowing design elements from both those popular franchises. But nothing plays quite like Valorant, and perhaps no other video game in the world is supported by such an ambitious esports program, which has fueled its immense popularity.
The Valorant community continues to grow, and now numbers just over 20 million active monthly players. With the esports scene entering a new chapter with franchised teams in 2023, and with Valorant continuing to dominate the streaming scene, you should expect the active player numbers to continue on an upward trajectory.
Related: Best Free Google Play Games on Dot Esports
9. Counter-Strike: GO – 35 Million
Counter-Strike: GO is the FPS that just won’t quit. Even as recently as May 8, 2023, the tactical team-based shooter saw its highest ever concurrent player numbers, topping 1.8 million concurrent users, according to SteamDB. That would be hugely impressive for any modern game. However, the remarkable part is that CS: GO has been cranking out this sort of performance for almost a decade now.
A strong esports presence and the brand power created by a franchise that’s been around since the late 1990s has kept CS: GO ahead of newer releases. It remains especially popular in Europe, with countries like Russia contributing massively to the overall size of an active community that numbers over 30 million active monthly players. Valve isn’t big on its support of CS: GO in the same way other publishers are for “live service” titles, such as Fortnite, Valorant, and Overwatch, but its generational fandom for the Counter-Strike franchise that has and continues to keep it relevant.
8. Call of Duty Warzone 2 – 52 Million
The Call of Duty franchise has always been a behemoth of the video game industry, but its popularity skyrocketed to all-new heights when the franchise launched a free-to-play, battle royale spin-off. Warzone has risen to become one of the most popular games in the world in record time, and it shows no sign of letting up — especially now that a sequel version has been released.
The Warzone 2 community is enormous and spread across PlayStation, Xbox, and PC platforms — though it is surely most played as a console experience where the franchise has always been very popular. The numbers for Warzone 2 are an estimation, based on the fact that we know the entire franchise has 94 million active monthly users as of a 2022, Q2 Activision earnings call. The figure is actually a slight decline from the game’s peak of over 100 million in previous years.
7. Genshin Impact – 65 Million
When Twinfinite reviewed Genshin Impact back in 2020, we knew it was something special. The genius fusion of Zelda-like exploration, anime-esque storytelling, and excellent role-playing mechanics were just too good not to succeed — especially not when it was all entirely for free! But did we suspect Genshin Impact would go on to become one of the biggest franchises in gaming? Certainly not.
When you look at how developer miHoYo has supported the game since its launch, though, it’s perhaps not so surprising to see just why its audience love the experience so much. There’s been an incredible amount of new content added, featuring all-new storylines, characters, areas to explore, and all manner of different events and challenges fleshing out the package.
The quality of the Genshin Impact experience has seen over 60 million players each month playing the game. That being said, with the China-based studio’s latest free-to-play gacha RPG, Honkai: Star Rail, making waves right now, it’s likely that numbers may begin to fall as fans embark on an alternate adventure that’s cut from the same cloth as its predecessor.
6. Apex Legends – 114 Million
Respawn’s Apex Legends stealth dropped out of nowhere and then proceeded to take the battle royale genre by storm. It proved the perfect recipe of compelling gameplay, AAA production quality, and a free-to-play business model that saw it succeed in temporarily dethroning Fortnite and PUBG as the most-played and most-watched multiplayer games.
Since an opening month that saw 2 million concurrent players, the community has stuck around and helped build a consistent playerbase that numbers around 114 million active monthly players. It’s safe to say that Apex has muscled its way into the genre and secured its place for the foreseeable future.
5. League of Legends – 152 Million
According to Riot Games, almost each and every single day, League of Legends is played by around 8 million people. Who said the MOBA genre was dying, eh?
Just as is the case with CS: GO, a strong esports scene has helped League of Legends to hold onto its community, which routinely turn up in the millions to watch competitive tournaments online. The League of Legends World Championships 2019 broke Twitch’s concurrent viewership records with 1.7 million watching FunPlus Phoenix crush G2 Esports.
In addition, a quick glance at activeplayer.io‘s latest analyses sees the beloved team-based strategy title racking up an astounding 152 million active players over the last 30 days, at the time of writing. Mighty impressive stuff!
4. Minecraft – 180 Million
Minecraft is a juggernaut that just keeps on steamrolling. The unending freedom to create, explore, and interact with other players in Minecraft makes it less of a game and more a sort of metaverse where players log in to just hang out. Such is the depth of different community-driven experiences you can have within Minecraft, it’s popular for different reasons for different people. In any case, there are a lot of Minecraft fans out there.
Back in 2015 when Minecraft’s monthly active users was around 40 million, the game logged an incredible 1.4 million concurrent players at one point. The game’s population is now four times as big!
3. Roblox – 210 Million
Roblox has skyrocketed in popularity since its launch back in 2006, especially over the past five or so years. Back in 2016 CEO David Baszuski was proudly touting 700,000 concurrent players and declaring the 1 million milestone wasn’t far around the corner. Fast forward to 2020 and Roblox’s 7th Annual Bloxy Awards saw an incredible 4 million players watching in-game concurrently.
In terms of monthly active players, the number is obviously larger. Much larger. Roblox is consistently played by around 200 million players across PC and mobile devices. Like Minecraft, it’s beloved for its almost metaverse quality in that it delivers all manner of different gameplay experiences, the majority of them designed by members of its community.
As for the here and now, early 2023 saw the free-to-play game creation platform manage to smash its own record of simultaneous users by hitting an eye-watering 9.3 million concurrent players. Mighty impressive, eh?
2. Fortnite – 240 Million
Love or hate Fortnite, it surely has to go down as among the most important video games ever made. Epic Games’ battle royale has totally recalibrated what it means to build and support a successful “live service” video game.
Fortnite is a constantly shifting entity, remolding itself with different features and gimmicks as new trends emerge. It’s essentially a new game every month thanks to its battle pass content. Plus, it’s also managed to embed itself into the pop culture zeitgeist by collaborating with musicians and celebrity figureheads to stay relevant.
During the Astronomical Concert back in 2020, Fortnite set a 12.3 million concurrent player peak, as players flocked to watch Travis Scott debut a new single. Epic Games doesn’t tend to really talk about player numbers outside of these big events, but estimates of the game’s average monthly players is somewhere around 240 million.
1. PUBG – 285 Million
The game that kicked off a frenzy that saw the entire multiplayer gaming landscape reshaped over the past few years, PUBG still commands a huge audience despite the battle royale genre becoming flooded with copycat titles.
Most notably, of course, it was copied by and then superseded by Epic Games’ Fortnite. PUBG’s premium model and its tardiness in arriving on consoles saw it fall behind rather quickly once Fortnite began gathering steam. That, however, all changed once it went free-to-play and a mobile version launched.
PUBG now once again rules not only the battle royale roost but the coveted title of most played game in the world — according to activeplayer.io, anyway. If we’re honest, we’re a bit skeptical of the data. The numbers don’t seem to align with what we see on Steamcharts for daily and monthly concurrent players, which are impressive at around 500,000 on big days but nowhere what you would expect if there truly are that many monthly players.
Now, it could be that the game’s playerbase is overwhelmingly on mobile. An AppAnnie report in 2019 estimated monthly player figures for the mobile version were upward of 100 million (not including China), but that was before the game was banned in India, a region where it was massively popular. We’ll continue to research the data and update this article where we can.
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