Dota 2 is currently enjoying some of its highest player counts in years after the release of the controversial Crownfall patch last week.
Over the past few days, Dota 2 has reached peak player counts of over 900,000 for the first time since 2022, with the highest coming on Sunday, April 21 with a total count of 921,133 players in the game at the same time. While numbers have dropped slightly in the days since they are still well above what they were before the release of the Crownfall patch.
These are the highest numbers since November 2022, according to SteamCharts, when the peak hit 990,057 which came in the days following the end of The International 11 tournament which was held in Singapore. The month prior, while the tournament was still running, the peak reached 1,038,848. The location of the tournament meant a large portion of the world could watch at a reasonable time, which was likely a key factor in the increased player count.
In recent months the peak has typically topped out in the mid-600,000 range, with the new peak from this weekend beating that by a good 300,000.
This all comes despite the reaction to the Crownfall patch initially being quite negative. After months of waiting and teases the community was disappointed that the update didn’t include any kind of balance patch, changes to the core Dota experience or the new hero Ringmaster. While many players thought the new content was cool, it wasn’t what a lot of people, myself included, were hoping for.
However, it seems the reaction of players who haven’t been playing Dota every day has been much more positive, with many returning to find out what Crownfall is all about. It looks like the promise of free cosmetics, some new arcanas and the fishing minigame has proven more popular than a lot of people initially thought, and with more content coming in a few weeks with the release of Act Two it’s likely the increased player count will continue.
While this is obviously great news for Dota, which hasn’t seen a big bump in players like this for some time, there is still the issue of the game not being in a great place to play for many people. If a new gameplay patch doesn’t arrive soon it could mean that all these returning players quickly hit the same issues others have and drop out once again.
