Diablo IV quadruples its launch numbers on Steam by peaking at over 23k concurrent players (with nuances)

Diablo IV has seen a huge surge in player count on Steam this week. Let’s take a look at how Blizzard’s successful ARPG has been performing on the store since its October launch and compare it to some other releases.

Why is Diablo IV’s player count growing on Steam?

On November 23, Diablo IV peaked at 23,037 concurrent players on Steam (via SteamDB). This is more than four times the number of users the game attracted at launch, when it reached 5,309 CCU.

There are two main reasons for this surge. First, Diablo IV went free on Steam for a week on November 21. Secondly, it is currently 40% off due to the ongoing Steam Autumn sale.

Diablo IV’s lifetime concurrent players on Steam

Given that Diablo IV will remain free-to-play over the weekend, it will likely attract more players. But even with the recent surge in concurrent users, the numbers seem quite weak compared to some other successful games that launched on Steam in 2023.

Diablo IV’s performance on Steam: good or bad?

Diablo IV is not the only game that recently broke its peak CCU record due to the right promotional events from the publisher. Last month, Battlefield 2042 boasted more impressive numbers: DICE’s shooter peaked at over 107k concurrent players following a free weekend, the start of the new season, and an 84% discount.

One of the main reasons Diablo IV hasn’t managed to perform better on Valve’s platform is that its PC version initially came out on Battle.net on June 5. So the core audience may have already purchased the game from Blizzard’s store before it was added to Steam on October 17.

A similar trend can be seen with some of Sony’s first-party games, which are usually ported to PC two to three years after launching on PlayStation. The Japanese company also rarely puts much effort into their marketing, so most of the results are not as impressive as some would expect from the PS brand. God of War and Marvel’s Spider-Man proved to be big hits even on Steam, and Days Gone also sold quite well. But games like Uncharted, Ratchet & Clank, Returnal, and Sackboy only peaked at 10k concurrent players or less at launch (to be fair, these titles’ sales on PC remain undisclosed).

PlayStation Studios’ PC releases by peak CCU (via SteamDB)

But even taking all these nuances into account, Diablo IV’s 23k peak is still not something you would expect from a AAA blockbuster based on the renowned IP. It also received mixed reviews from Steam players, with only 65% of more than 6,000 user reviews being positive.

For comparison, Overwatch 2 peaked at 75.6k concurrent players upon its launch on Steam, but is a free-to-play game. In addition, it is now also the second-worst rated game on Steam of all time, with only 14% of 217k user reviews being positive. So Blizzard’s expansion into Valve’s store doesn’t seem great so far.

However, Diablo IV’s overall commercial performance has been quite impressive. In its first five days, the game generated $666 million globally, becoming Blizzard’s fastest-selling game ever. According to Newzoo, it was also the highest-grossing title in the US and UK on both PC and consoles in July.