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Dota 2’s player base has been slowly dwindling for most of the last year, but the last month has seen a pretty big rebound for multiple reasons, hitting 400,000 average players for the first time since November 2019.
From all of the changes that Valve has been making to matchmaking, the Dota Pro Circuit hitting its stride, and, most recently, the coronavirus forcing people to spend more time at home, they have all provided a bump to the game’s numbers.
According to Steam Charts, just through February alone, Dota saw its first player increase since November, going up 7.14 percent and hitting 405,978 average players on the month. That is the highest player count the game has had since last September (421,971) and the highest increase since February 2019 (18.74 percent.)
The number has continued to rise as March continues too, already increasing another 1.48 percent to 412,000 average players and also breaking 700,000 peak players for the first time since November. At the rate the numbers have been going up, Dota might end up hitting 450,000 average players again, bringing the game back to its average from 2018.
Dota isn’t the only game to see a spike in players as CS:GO recently broke 1 million players for the first time in the game’s 16-year history. Likewise, Steam also broke its record for all-time concurrent player peak after breaking 20 million users yesterday.
As more people turn to video games during their practice of social distancing due to the coronavirus, other games will likely start to break player records as the weeks go on.
