Dota 2 player count drops to new low in 2024 ahead of The International 2024

Dota 2

August 21, 2024

Marcus Wong

Valve’s brainchild game, Dota 2, dropped sharply in player count today. This puts Dota 2 at a low of 449,000 concurrent players, which is a concerning figure for the state of Dota 2.

Games that surpass Dota 2’s player count

Dota 2 concurrent player count drops (Image credit: SteamDB)

Despite being one of Valve’s oldest games in the Steam store, many games have broken Dota 2’s player count record multiple times in the past.

Today, however, a new AAA game, Black Myth: Wukong, has taken the spotlight for the current most-played game and even all-time peak. For the record, Black Myth: Wukong has a peak player count of 2.2 million players, while Dota 2 had 1.2 million. While that’s a considerable gap between the two games, Dota 2’s peak count is still impressive.

However, the concern arises when we realized that Dota 2 reached that record way back in March 2016, eight years ago. Since then, Dota 2 hasn’t been able to regain such high player count.

Is Dota 2 dying?

Dota 2 and other games’ all-time peak player counts (Image credit: SteamDB)

The age-old dilemma on whether Dota 2 is dying has reared its head again, as expected after news it had dropped to fourth place. Disregarding the sceptics and fear-mongers, Valve has, for the most part, delivered their best efforts to not just keeping Dota 2 alive, but gain new players.

Their recent roadmap goal that transitioned from a cosmetic-heavy development to more in-game oriented updates is working. Since Valve’s transition, the Dota 2 meta has shifted drastically with unique mechanics, such as Aghanim’s Shard abilities, expanded map, innate abilities and facets. All of which have made Dota 2 very fun and interesting to play while retaining its roots.

Will Dota 2 reach its all-time high again?

Unfortunately, it’s painful as a long-time Dota 2 player to say that the average 440K player count will remain as is. Even with the hype behind the upcoming TI13, new hero introduction, Ringmaster or Diretide event. It’s bold to claim that Dota 2 will reach its all-time high ever again in 2024 and beyond.