Steam begins 2026 by smashing the users online record again

By Liam Dawe - 12 Jan 2026 at 11:31 am UTC

Last updated: 12 Jan 2026 at 1:45 pm UTC

A pretty good way for Valve to start the year, with Steam breaking another all-time users online record. Looking on SteamDB, the new record is 42,042,778 online as of 21 hours ago. At the time, around 13,399,958 people were actually in-game.

The most popular games over the last 24 hours based on their peak counts were:

Counter-Strike 2
Dota 2
PUBG: Battlegrounds
ARC Raiders
Apex Legends
Rust

Only the start of the year too, so perhaps will see Steam break some more records during 2026.

Some history for you of recent milestones of people online:

I actually seem to have missed when it crossed over 41 million back in October 2025.

A good time all around, with the Linux share on Steam also hitting hitting another all-time high. Going by the Linux overall count, this means there may have been around 1,505,131 Linux gamers online on Steam.

Article taken from GamingOnLinux.com.

Tags: Misc, Steam, Valve

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About the author - Liam Dawe

I am the owner of GamingOnLinux. After discovering Linux back in the days of Mandrake in 2003, I constantly checked on the progress of Linux until Ubuntu appeared on the scene and it helped me to really love it. You can reach me easily by emailing GamingOnLinux directly.
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2 comments

rea987 3 hours ago

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Makes sense. Snowy winter in Europe that closed roads and schools; severe inflation that rendered socialising outside near-impossible. I can't think of better way to kill time. Heck, even I returned to Overcooked 2 and finally started playing Victor Vran after years of delaying.

Last edited by rea987 on 12 Jan 2026 at 12:36 pm UTC

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scaine 2 hours ago

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ONE OF US! ONE OF US!

The idea of over a million gamers, gaming on Linux. Love it. Still a long road before we see vendor support, or anti-cheat budging, but that's a big proportion, and should be celebrated.

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