Warzone player count takes huge dip as COD players lose patience

Warzone is facing one of its biggest drops in player count in two years, as players move away from the game by the thousands and flock to other titles.

For some years now, Warzone has been one of the most dominant battle royales on the market and, while that hasn’t exactly changed, it is losing its grip on the playerbase.

At the time of writing on December 19, as of the last 30 days, Warzone has lost over 102,000 players, or 32.6% of its playerbase on Steam, according to official player charts.

Obviously, a large number of players aren’t on Steam and instead use other platforms such as Battlenet, Xbox, or PlayStation – but it will be indicative of a wider movement away from Call of Duty: Warzone.

For Warzone, this represents the largest drop in players in two years, dating back to late 2022 when Modern Warfare II was integrated and ushered in the ‘Warzone 2.0’ era.

After that first launched in November 2022, player count dropped by 181,630 (36.9%) in December ‘22 and 142,746 (46.0%) in January ‘23, a period that is widely critiqued as a failure for the title, as it completely changed up the movement mechanics and slowed the gameplay down.

In its place, other games like Fortnite and Marvel Rivals have seen huge player boosts. Fortnite relaunched the OG map and has gained roughly 10 million players over the past 30 days, according to Fortnite.gg, while Marvel Rivals consistently has upwards of 150,000 users minimum on Steam at any time since it launched on December 6.

However, there is still some way to go before Warzone reaches its lowest player count on Steam. In July 2023, it went as low as just 86,000 players, while it currently sits at a healthy 212,000.

Why are players leaving Warzone?

The reasons for players leaving Warzone could be many and varied. Streamer Swagg said he fears for the future of the game with hackers at an “all-time high,” while former COD pro and 100 Thieves CEO Matthew ‘Nadeshot’ Haag has said he will be stepping away from the game, citing the cheating crisis and performance issues in Black Ops 6.

Players also haven’t exactly fallen in love with new Resurgence map Area 99, while delaying the addition of a new big map, or the return of Verdansk, means players are still stuck on Urzikstan, leaving little new to explore.