Cyberpunk 2077’s resurgence will not slow down, with its concurrent player count continuing to grow day by day and its sales numbers now placing it first on Steam’s recent Top Sellers directory, above the upcoming Modern Warfare II and FIFA 23.
The rising player count of Cyberpunk 2077 is something that’s been noticeable for the past few weeks now, and there are two major factors that are most likely the cause. Earlier this month, development studio CD Projekt Red confirmed that the game will be getting a DLC expansion called Phantom Liberty, which will feature a whole new district within the open world and a new story based on American spy thrillers. Furthermore, it’s been confirmed that Keanu Reeves will return to reprise his role of Johnny Silverhand.
But many speculate that even more impactful than the DLC announcement was the immense success of the Netflix anime spinoff Cyberpunk: Edgerunners, which released on September 13. The series has been getting praised left and right, and since it’s such a success on Netflix, it’s certainly possible for the Cyberpunk IP to have reached a whole new audience who would have otherwise never heard of the game. It’s also possible for both of these factors to have motivated past players to come back and give the game another try. CD Projekt Red recently revealed that the game is getting 1 million unique players per day, and they specified that these were both new and returning players.
It’s possible that some of these returning players never finished the game because they were put off by its original unfinished state. Back in December 2020, Cyberpunk 2077 launched with numerous visual and functional glitches, particularly on PlayStation 4 and Xbox One. Fan reaction was so negative that PlayStation even removed the game from the PlayStation Store for six months, reinstating it only with a warning that the PS4 version was still plagued with issues. Though not perfect, patches over time did make the game much more functional on newer hardware, so players may be coming back in droves because they’re now able to enjoy what PC players had stated was a solid open-world title with a great story.
Twitter user Benji-Sales had been tracking the peak concurrent player count on Steam for the past week. On September 19, the game reached the peak of 78,478 players. The current peak for September 25 is 136,724. He also pointed out that the game, nearly two years after its launch, passed the peak concurrent player count of The Witcher 3, which was 103,329.
