Rainbow Six Siege, Now Four Years Old, Breaks Its Own Concurrent Player Record On Steam

Rainbow Six Siege, which launched in December 2015, has been supported with new DLC operators and maps ever since, allowing the game to grow over time. Now, an industry analyst has pegged the game as an amazing example of the benefits of long-term success as it hits a new major milestone.

Benji-Sales, who analyzes trends within the industry, has discovered and announced that Rainbow Six: Siege recently had its best day ever for concurrent players on Steam, with 180,000 players logging into the game at the same time. That figure does not account for players on Uplay or consoles, which means that the actual figure of online players would have been much higher.

Steam itself puts the exact peak number at 180,463, which is the fifth highest peak concurrent count listed for the last 24 hours, as of this post. It's behind Counter-Strike: Global Offensive (896,092), Dota 2 (647,060), PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds (584,139), and Grand Theft Auto V (228,023).

Over time, including free play weekends, the game has attracted 50 million players. Ubisoft recently talked about how adding respawn mechanics might have grown the game further, but also would have made it worse; it seems that their current strategy is working well, though.

The game shows no signs of slowing down, either. Ubisoft is about to introduce its first major overhaul of a character, with Tachanka ditching his turret for a grenade launcher. The game will also be available on Xbox Series X and PlayStation 5 at console launch, with cross-generation play confirmed.

Another Rainbow Six game, Rainbow Six: Quarantine, is also in the works. A release date has not been set, but it's coming to PC, PS4, PS5, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X.