Call of Duty hit a record low player count on Steam, and there is plenty of speculation floating around as to why. Call of Duty recently experienced a triumphant period of success with the launch of Black Ops 6 and revamps to Warzone. Additionally, exciting limited events were routinely added to motivate players to continue playing. Despite its strong start, Call of Duty appears to be losing its steam.

Black Ops 6 has been largely regarded as a return to form for the series, satisfying many players. However, Call of Duty has consistently been the center of controversies recently. Fans have recently expressed shock at the Call of Duty franchise experimenting with AI, introducing skins unfitting the game’s aesthetic, and skins players believe adversely impact gameplay. Many believe that problems like this have no impact on the games’ success, but it’s evident that something appears to be going wrong with Call of Duty.

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Metrics from SteamDB show that Call of Duty‘s player count on the platform has dropped to a record low of just over 54,000—barely a quarter of its record peak of 223,000 in November 2022. Gamers have shared news of this occurrence across social media platforms, and although this is an unfortunate event for the teams of people that develop and publish the title, some fans think it may be a good thing. To players who have various complaints about Call of Duty, a period of failure could be the wakeup call the franchise needs.

COD Hits an All-Time-Low on Steam

Although Call of Duty has dropped to a record low on Steam, its numbers have bounced up by about 10,000 since then, and it’s not clear how the game is faring on other platforms. Between Black Ops 6, Warzone, and other titles gamers are still active on, there are still plenty of players across PlayStation and Xbox platforms between current and last-gen systems. A significant portion of Call of Duty players are on Xbox Game Pass’s massively successful platform. Despite that, it still seems like Call of Duty might be geared for a downward trend.

A common stance among fans is that Call of Duty has lost some of its goodwill and that if the game hopes to get it back, the sentiment must be earned. Some feel as if their gameplay experience isn’t the priority. Since it was implemented, skill-based matchmaking has been controversial in the games, and players lament that it seems to decide the flow of matches before they even begin. Additionally, people have expressed that they dislike some of the recent seasonal Call of Duty changes, which means that the developers may have to do more to incentivize play. With so much competition in the genre, Call of Duty might need to make drastic changes to recapture its audience.

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