Dota 2 peaked at over 820,000 players with the battle pass release, highest since 2020

The battle pass marks the start of a special time for Dota 2 fans. It reminds all players that The International, the most prestigious Dota 2 event on the game’s competitive calendar, is quickly approaching. Though a lot was missing in the 2022 Dota 2 battle pass, the player numbers still surged with the expectations and broke the game’s peak player count after two years.

In 2016 and 2017, it wasn’t unusual for Dota 2 to have over a million players online simultaneously. The game never had more than a million players online at the same time since Feb. 2019 and hasn’t had over 800,000 players since April 2020. With some fans moving on to different endeavors and Valve’s bad reputation in marketing, the peak and average player count for Dota 2  started to stagnate and decline.

Whenever there’s a highly-anticipated content release, like the battle pass or a major tournament like TI, Dota 2 veterans dust off their gaming equipment as their love for the game rekindles. On Sept. 1, the 2022 battle pass release pushed Dota 2’s peak player count to 826,804, the highest it’s ever been in the last two years.

Valve, on the other hand, may have a difficult time retaining the players returning to the game since the Dota 2 community has been vocal about their disappointment in the 2022 battle pass. With lots of key content missing, and harder level-up conditions for free-to-play players, most have been questioning whether the 2022 Dota 2 battle pass is worth it.