Cyberpunk 2077 Was One of Steam's Most-Played Games in 2021
In case you somehow missed it, Steam recently announced the Best of Steam 2021, an internal ranking on the digital distribution platform of top sellers by gross revenue, those titles it considers "most played" by highest peak concurrent players, and so on. That isn't all that surprising. What is somewhat surprising, however, is despite all of its extremely publicized problems, and the fact that it actually released in December 2020, CD Projekt Red's Cyberpunk 2077 still managed to rank in more than one area.
More specifically, Cyberpunk 2077 is part of the top tier of the most-played games with over 200,000 peak players, and while it did not quite make the Platinum tier for top sellers, it's only a small drop to Silver. Considering that top sellers in this were measured by gross revenue, it will likely come as no surprise that a number of titles above it feature major DLC, expansions, or in-game microtransactions. As a single-player title, Cyberpunk 2077's inclusion even that close to the top of the pile seems like an enormous success.
Announcing the Best of Steam 2021! Take a look at this year's top sellers, new releases, most-played games, and more!
— Steam (@Steam) December 27, 2021
Curious which games had the highest peak concurrent players? The answer to that and more in this year's list!
https://t.co/ZcGuS2d1Hb
To be clear, none of this is actually a value judgment on how good Cyberpunk 2077 actually is. It simply means that a lot of people played the thing at once and a lot of people spent money on the video game. Steam's measuring of all this is pretty opaque with no direct numbers attached beyond some occasional benchmarks, so it's impossible to directly compare it to any other title. But it does seem safe to conclude that, in spite of itself, Cyberpunk 2077 was one of the biggest video games on Steam in 2021. The question now is whether that will continue in 2022.
Cyberpunk 2077 itself is currently available for PlayStation 4, Xbox One, Google Stadia, and PC. It is also available to play on both the PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X|S with a free upgrade releasing later to take advantage of the next-gen hardware. You can check out all of our previous coverage of the video game right here.
What do you make of Cyberpunk 2077 managing to make Steam's Best of 2021? Did you happen to play the title on the digital distribution platform? Let us know in the comments, or feel free to reach out and hit me up directly over on Twitter at @rollinbishop to talk about all things gaming!