Cyberpunk 2077 disaster continues as Steam players ditch the game

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Not even Keanu can keep people playing in Night City

Cyberpunk 2077 review
(Image credit: CD Projekt Red)

Things just keep getting worse for Cyberpunk 2077 it seems. After a disastrous launch, which saw considerable backlash about the state of the final game, it seems PC gamers have been ditching the game en masse.

After the record-breaking debut that saw 1 million players adventuring through Night City at the same time, the game has lost over 75% of its player base on Steam. That massive drop has happened less than a month after the huge game's November 10 release. 

Steam stats show that the game peaked with 1,054,388 concurrent players on December 12, just two days after release. The game has been in a steady decline since then, and it peaked at just 147,788 concurrent players over the past 24 hours.

The peak over the past seven days is a little higher, with 225,55 on January 2. Since that’s a Saturday we can expect more people to have time to play games, though it’s not a good look for Cyberpunk 2077. We can only assume that these figures will continue to fall until CD Projekt Red releases a significant update. 

cyberpunk 2077 steam stas

(Image credit: SteamDB.info)

Interestingly Cyberpunk 2077 is still sitting at a 78.27% positive review score, with 276,476 positive reviews compared to just 76,742 negative ones. That suggests this drop in players isn’t just because of the game’s myriad of problems.

Games will always see a drop in players after release, though the longer it takes for people to move onto something else the better. CDPR’s last open-world game, The Witcher 3, took three months to lose as many players as Cyberpunk 2077 managed in a third of the time.

The game’s current review score suggests most Steam players don’t dislike the game, even if they’re not playing it anymore. One of the criticisms leveled at Cyberpunk was how short the main quest was, alongside the lack of side quests, so it could easily be that the fleeing players just ran out of things to do.

Or they’re just waiting for CDPR to start rolling out major fixes and content updates, at which point they’ll return to Night City. Because fresh content is always a draw, as is the ability to play a game without the bugs and glitches that have plagued gamers so far.

A Cyberpunk 2077 patch for the PS5 and Xbox Series X is expected to come out in the next couple of months. Not only will it promise to boost the game's visuals on the new consoles, but it could also see a new wave of players give the game a go.

However, CDPR will need Cyberpunk 2077 to be rather bug-free by then if it's to repair its somewhat damaged reputation that was dragged down by the game's ragged launch and other controversies surrounding its development.   

Tom Pritchard
Tom Pritchard
UK Phones Editor

Tom is the Tom's Guide's UK Phones Editor, tackling the latest smartphone news and vocally expressing his opinions about upcoming features or changes. It's long way from his days as editor of Gizmodo UK, when pretty much everything was on the table. He’s usually found trying to squeeze another giant Lego set onto the shelf, draining very large cups of coffee, or complaining about how terrible his Smart TV is.