As Warzone 2 drops, Modern Warfare 2 becomes Steam's third-biggest game

With the arrival of Warzone 2, Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 is currently the third-biggest game on Steam by concurrent players.

At the time of writing, Modern Warfare 2 is sitting at a little over 290,000 players. That's down from its peak of 452,381, but still enough to keep it in third place, above its biggest battle royale competitors, PUBG: Battlegrounds and Apex Legends. I wouldn't be too surprised to see it beat Apex's all-time record of 511,000 over the weekend, as player counts are likely to spike.

Call of Duty isn't too likely to dislodge CS:GO or Dota 2, which maintain a strong hold on Steam's first and second slots, or to overtake PUBG's all-time record of more than 3.2 million concurrents, but it's still a very impressive return to the platform. MW2 marks the first Call of Duty game to hit Steam since 2017's WW2 - in the interim, the games have only been available on PC via BattleNet.

PC hasn't generally been the leading platform for Call of Duty, with more players opting for console, so this is further indication of a very impressive start for Modern Warfare 2. The game had the biggest launch in Call of Duty history, breaking sales records across multiple regions and platforms. 

It's not all smooth sailing, however. As with the launch of any major multiplayer game, there have been a few kinks to iron out; in some instances, players have been killed when they should have been downed, while elsewhere, squads are struggling to group up due to issues inviting friends. There are some positives, though, and one of them is proximity chat, which surely no one has been using to lure unsuspecting enemies to their deaths?

Want to know what's coming next to the latest battle royale? Here's the Modern Warfare 2 and Warzone 2 roadmap.