Counter-Strike: Global Offensive set a new record for the average number of players in the last 30 days.
CS:GO reached 402,524 average players over the last 30 days, according to Steam Charts, a website that tracks Steam’s concurrent players on all of its titles. The eight-year-old game hadn’t hit numbers that high since February 2017.
CS:GO fans are excited about the feat, claiming that they’ve “peaked” in a game that generally hovers around 350,000 concurrent players.
A fan on Reddit weighed in on all of the factors that may have helped lead to CS:GO’s triumph.
“ECS and ESL events coming back to Twitch along with the game going [free-to-play] in December have helped,” the fan said. “Variety Twitch streamers briefly playing the game for a few hours a month has also helped.”
Free-to-play games like Fortnite and Apex Legends have achieved great success. Valve’s decision to do the same with CS:GO last December led to a rise in players, increasing its concurrent players by around 100,000 in only a few months.
With ECS and ESL returning to Twitch and popular streamers like Timothy “TimtheTanman” Betar streaming Valve’s FPS, CS:GO’s concurrent player count may continue to rise throughout the rest of 2019.