Cyberpunk 2077 Just Hit 162,000 Players on Steam, Its Biggest Comeback Since Phantom Liberty

Six years after one of the most infamous launches in gaming history, Cyberpunk 2077 refuses to stay dead. Off the back of Update 2.5, the Netflix release of Edgerunners 2 and a 70% off Steam sale, it has just hit its biggest player numbers in three years.

Forbes’ Paul Tassi reported 154,000 concurrent Steam players and climbing on 24 October, calling it the game’s second-highest player count since launch. By SteamCharts’ tally the October peak has since reached 162,021. When we checked on Sunday it was still sitting around 148,000 players at once, roughly five times its September average.

The numbers

• Oct 2026 peak: 162,021 on Steam (SteamCharts), up from a 55,099 peak in September. The 30-day average jumped about 32%, to roughly 39,500.
• Edgerunners season 1 (Sep 2022): 136,724. That was the famous anime-driven comeback, and it’s now been beaten comfortably.
• Update 2.0 and Phantom Liberty (Sep to Oct 2023): 258,880 and 273,990. That’s still the biggest wave since launch, and this one is about 60% of it.
• Launch (Dec 2020): about 1.05 million concurrents according to SteamDB, one of the biggest debuts Steam has ever seen.

A quick asterisk on “second-highest”. On SteamCharts’ monthly peaks, the 2.0 and Phantom Liberty months both beat this, and so does January 2021, when the game was still in its launch hangover. Forbes treats the 2023 relaunch as one wave, which makes this the second-biggest comeback. Either way, this is the most people in Night City since late 2023. And remember these are Steam-only numbers: PS5, Xbox, GOG, Epic and Mac players aren’t counted.

Why now? Three things at once

1. Edgerunners 2. All 10 episodes of the new season dropped on Netflix on 20 October. FlixPatrol-based reports had it at #1 in the US and #2 globally in its first days. The catch is that it’s nowhere near as loved as season 1: critic scores are reportedly sitting in the high 70s to low 80s on Rotten Tomatoes, with audience scores in the low 60s, against season 1’s near-perfect marks. Even Tassi called it “just okay”. Yet even an okay season of Edgerunners still sends people running back to the game.

2. Update 2.5. CDPR shipped the free Edgerunners 2 Update on 22 October. It’s the game’s biggest patch since Phantom Liberty, though Tassi reckons it adds maybe 5% of the content of 2.0 and Phantom Liberty. Here are the highlights (our full breakdown is here):

• Clampdown, a new side quest set before Edgerunners 2 (finish The Heist plus two Wakako gigs), with a five-piece King gear set.
• Double Trouble: a new Cool-tree perk (plus four supporting perks) for dual-wielding pistols and revolvers.
• Glamdocs: five shops where you can reskin your Mantis Blades, Gorilla Arms, Monowire and Projectile Launch System.
• Welcome to Paradise, a guided-tour side quest narrated by Richard Night, plus 12 new Minor Arcana tarot cards with their own quest.
• A new radio station, HKGN 102.0 FM, with Edgerunners tracks, five new clothing collections and some NPC-only hairstyles opened up for V.
• Cross-platform mod support via mod.io on PC, Mac, PS5 and Xbox Series X|S. This is the first time console players get official mods.
• DLSS 4.5 with up to 6X Multi Frame Generation, FSR 4, better HDR, ray-tracing optimisations, and save files grouped by playthrough.

3. The sale. Cyberpunk 2077 is currently 70% off on Steam: NZ$29.99 (from NZ$99.99) in New Zealand, A$26.98 (from A$89.95) in Australia and US$17.99 in the US. Forbes puts the full package with Phantom Liberty at about US$33.

Our take

Let’s be real: this is the most CDPR comeback of all time. A pretty thin content patch, an anime season that’s “fine”, and a big discount, and the game still pulls more players than most new releases would kill for. That’s not luck. That’s what years of fixing your broken game properly gets you. Phantom Liberty and 2.0 earned the trust; Edgerunners keeps reminding people it exists.

It’s also a lesson every studio with a busted launch should tattoo on their forehead: fix it, support it, and plug it into something people actually want to watch. Cyberpunk went from refunds and memes to five years of comebacks. The real test is Cyberpunk 2. CDPR can’t pull this redemption arc twice, so it had better launch in a state that doesn’t need one. In the meantime, if you’ve never played it, NZ$30 for this is a steal. Grab Phantom Liberty too while you’re at it.

Back in Night City this week? Dual pistols or Mantis Blades? Tell us your build in the comments, or come show off your V in the GetRekt Discord.

Sources

• Forbes: Cyberpunk 2077 Rockets To Its Second-Highest Playercount Since Launch (24 Oct 2026)
• SteamCharts: Cyberpunk 2077 player history
• Steam: Cyberpunk 2077 Edgerunners 2 Update (2.5) patch notes
• Steam store: Cyberpunk 2077 (pricing checked 25 Oct)
• Axios: Cyberpunk 2077 surges after Netflix anime debut (2022)
• OpenCritic: Cyberpunk’s player count hits a three-year high
• Collider: Edgerunners season 2 streaming debut
• Screen Rant: Edgerunners 2 Rotten Tomatoes score