The return of Call of Duty: Warzone's original map, Verdansk, appears to be doing its job of driving players back to the game, on Steam at least. On Steam, Warzone and Black Ops 6 are packaged together inside the overarching "Call of Duty" launcher--and player numbers are spiking.
Call of Duty surged past 114,000 concurrent players on Steam today, April 3, following the re-introduction of Verdansk to Warzone for the first time since December 2021. This is the highest player count for Call of Duty in 2025 so far. It's still well below the all-time peak of 491,670 players from November 2022, however. At 114,000+ concurrent players, Call of Duty is the No. 8 most popular game on Steam at press time.
Warzone itself is a free-to-play game, but it's not listed as such on Steam because it's part of the Call of Duty launcher that includes paid titles like Black Ops 6. It's not clear how many of the 110,000+ people playing Call of Duty on Steam are playing Warzone. Also unknown is how Warzone is performing on Xbox and PlayStation since the reintroduction of Verdansk.
Beyond the return of Verdansk, Black Ops 6's new Season 3 update is live now with lots of new content, including more weapons, maps, and modes.
Call of Duty seems to be banking on nostalgia to revive Warzone's player count. A recent report said if the arrival of Verdansk fails to retain existing players and/or bring back lapsed players, there will be no "Warzone 3." (For what it's worth, the current version of Warzone is a renamed version of Warzone 2.0). It's not clear what this means, though, or how Activision may measure success.
Beyond Warzone, a new Call of Duty game is expected to release in 2025, and it could be a Black Ops 2 sequel. It'll face stiff competition in the market, as Rockstar's Grand Theft Auto 6 is coming this fall. For context, Black Ops 6 was 2024's best-selling game in the US.
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Call of Duty surged past 114,000 concurrent players on Steam today, April 3, following the re-introduction of Verdansk to Warzone for the first time since December 2021. This is the highest player count for Call of Duty in 2025 so far. It's still well below the all-time peak of 491,670 players from November 2022, however. At 114,000+ concurrent players, Call of Duty is the No. 8 most popular game on Steam at press time.
Warzone itself is a free-to-play game, but it's not listed as such on Steam because it's part of the Call of Duty launcher that includes paid titles like Black Ops 6. It's not clear how many of the 110,000+ people playing Call of Duty on Steam are playing Warzone. Also unknown is how Warzone is performing on Xbox and PlayStation since the reintroduction of Verdansk.
Beyond the return of Verdansk, Black Ops 6's new Season 3 update is live now with lots of new content, including more weapons, maps, and modes.
Call of Duty seems to be banking on nostalgia to revive Warzone's player count. A recent report said if the arrival of Verdansk fails to retain existing players and/or bring back lapsed players, there will be no "Warzone 3." (For what it's worth, the current version of Warzone is a renamed version of Warzone 2.0). It's not clear what this means, though, or how Activision may measure success.
Beyond Warzone, a new Call of Duty game is expected to release in 2025, and it could be a Black Ops 2 sequel. It'll face stiff competition in the market, as Rockstar's Grand Theft Auto 6 is coming this fall. For context, Black Ops 6 was 2024's best-selling game in the US.
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