How many people play Apex Legends? 2024 player count trend explained
Respawn EntertainmentApex Legends is now five years old, yet despite its age, it continues to be one of the most played titles on the market, and its 2024 player count performs surprisingly well compared to other games.
When Apex Legends dropped back in February 2019, nobody could have predicted that Respawn’s first entry into the battle royale realm would be such a smash hit. Releasing at a time when Fortnite dominated the genre, the game offered a different kind of experience, with its three-man squad gameplay setting it apart from its rivals.
Since then, it’s survived the rise of Warzone, and new FPS contenders like The FINALS and XDefiant, and remains one of the most popular battle royales in the world. Here’s everything you need to know about how many people are playing it in 2024.
Despite these timid expectations, Apex Legends’ player count hit 1 million within the first 24 hours of release back on February 4, 2019. By the end of the first week, it had reached 25 million players, and then 50 million in the first month.
Player count as of 2024
In 2024, Apex Legends’ player count is 18 million active monthly players, as confirmed by EA in their FY2024 Q1 earnings call on August 1, 2023.
However, in their Q1 2025 earnings call on July 30, 2024, EA’s Chief Financial Officer Stuart Cranfield admitted that the game had seen a “year-on-year decline.” The good news is that according to Cranfield, this decline “improved sequentially” and ended up coming back in line with their expectations. The company did not release new figures for player numbers during this call, so there’s no telling for certain the exact number, though it clearly aligns with the figure above.
Apex Legends’ average player count is dropping
This statement from Stuart Cranfield is seen clearly when we take a look at the average and peak player count for Apex Legends. October saw a 20% drop in average players to 85,102 according to SteamCharts, and four of the last six months have seen a net loss. Only August and November saw a rise in player count on the platform.
The same can be seen when looking at peak player count during this five-month span, with October 2024 seeing a significant drop. In October, the peak player count on Steam was 184,035, the lowest since January 2022. Though it did bounce back slightly in November, recording a peak of 225,795 players on Steam.
Of course, there is context we need to consider with these numbers and charts. For one, this only includes numbers on Steam and doesn’t take into account performance on consoles like PS5 or Xbox Series X/S.
It’s also worth noting that October was two months after Season 22 started, but a month away from the launch of Season 23, so it’s understandable that there would be a drop-off. However, the player count slumping to its lowest point for over two years is a concern.
Apex Legends’ player count is surprisingly great compared to other games
Despite these numbers trending down, there is still good news for Apex Legends. When you compare it to other FPS games on Steam it still performs surprisingly well and beats out a lot of its competition.
Using the 30-day rolling average, we can see in the table below that Apex is still a big player in the FPS scene, beating out a number of big titles on the platform.
| Game | 30-day average |
|---|---|
| Apex Legends | 91,657 |
| Call of Duty | 160,529 |
| Counter-Strike 2 | 853,951 |
| Overwatch 2 | 31,494 |
| Team Fortress 2 | 51,635 |
| Tom Clancy’s Rainbow Six Siege | 35,544 |
| The FINALS | 14,050 |
Of course, as mentioned above, SteamCharts only includes the data from Valve’s platform, so it doesn’t take into consideration how the game is doing on consoles, or other launchers. For example, a lot of CoD and Overwatch players will use Battle.net rather than Steam, so the number is higher than what we see above.
Still, it shows that Apex performs well compared to its competition, although it’s unlikely to ever challenge Valve’s FPS King Counter-Strike.
All-time player count
More than 130 million players have dropped into Apex Legends over its lifetime. This figure was last confirmed in 2022 however, and so will be much higher now.
On April 14, 2021, Respawn announced that Apex Legends had hit 100 million players in total. This was boosted thanks to the release of the game on Steam and Nintendo Switch.
In EA’s earnings call in February 2022, the publisher said that monthly active players in Apex were “up more than 30% year-over-year in Q3.”
“With more than 28 million new players joining in the last year and new seasons and in-game events that continue to deliver new experiences to a deeply engaged community, FY 2022 is the biggest year yet for Apex.”
While the exact figure wasn’t revealed, we can at least assume somewhere around 130 million total players have now played the game since.
What is Apex Legends’ peak player count?
Apex Legends launched on Steam in November 2020 and reached its all-time peak player count of over 620,000 in Season 16.
We will continue to update this article to reflect player data each month, so make sure to stay tuned on how many players are logging into Apex Legends each day.
In the meantime, check out our Overwatch and Valorant player count trackers to see how those games stack up against Respawn’s battle royale.
Check our Legends and weapons tier lists to choose the best Legends and weapons in the game to outplay your enemies.