Cyberpunk 2077 player numbers on Steam are dropping at an alarmingly fast rate despite the sci-fi RPG being less than a month old.
As pointed out by folks over on GitHyp who have crunched the numbers, CD Projekt RED’s latest creation is hemorrhaging concurrent players at a pace 3x faster than that of The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt when it landed back in 2015. As of writing, Night City’s population of player characters currently stands at approximately 225,000, a far cry from the impressive 1 million figure recorded on December 10th. The discrepancy represents a 79% loss in player retention, though it’s worth noting right out the gate that Cyberpunk is currently single player only and was never intended to be a live service title. That being the case, downward trends are to be expected. The speed with which the process is happening, however, is what’s startling.
Unlike console versions, user reviews on Steam have remained largely positive due to superior performance, though all currently available iterations have been affected by numerous bugs, some of which have been game-breaking. Fortunately, the developer has since rolled out several patches aimed at resolving the more egregious issues, though it appears as if much time will need to pass before overall public perception becomes favorable.
How the situation will ultimately resolve when all’s said and done will be interesting to see, no doubt, and we wouldn’t at all be surprised to learn of a rebound in player numbers once certain milestones have been reached. Alongside rumored free campaign DLC, CDPR confirmed prior to Cyberpunk 2077‘s launch that a multiplayer component is in the works.
For now, though, the primary focus is on fixing what’s already available. See here for the latest patch notes.
