Call of Duty Black Ops 6 Beats Modern Warfare 3 Launch

Many fans have been saying Call of Duty is back, and it looks like Call of Duty: Black Ops 6 is proving them right as it is already surpassing previous games on launch day.

Whether it be because the game has a campaign that is reviewing well or that people just vibe with the gameplay, Treyarch’s latest entry in the CoD franchise has already peaked at over 229,000 players on Steam in just the first day. That puts it well above Modern Warfare 3’s 190,273 players at launch in 2023 and is approaching Modern Warfare 2’s 262,875 player peak in 2022, according to Steam Charts and Dexerto.

This is big news for Call of Duty, as it has slowly been bleeding players since MW3 launched last year, even with Warzone present in the HQ launcher. Prior to BO6 launching, CoD’s Steam numbers had reached an average of 57,376 average players—putting it close to a new all-time low, which is still held by September 2023’s 55,145 average.

Ahead of what will likely be a weekend surge in numbers, BO6 is already sitting as a top five game on Steam by player count, just behind PUBG. This also puts it ahead other popular shooters like Deadlock and Apex Legends. 

These numbers don’t reflect the massive Call of Duty audience playing on console and is further diluted this year because BO6 is the first Call of Duty game available day-and-date on Xbox Game Pass. This means players can subscribe to Game Pass Ultimate and access the game at no additional cost on both Xbox and PC for the first time since the Microsoft acquisition of Activision Blizzard.

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To pair with its rising Steam numbers, BO6 is also the top game on Twitch at launch, with over 370,000 viewers. The player count and viewership for this game should continue going up throughout launch weekend, and it looks like Microsoft and Activision have finally given players what they have been asking for.