It’s a Monday that opens with PC gaming flexing harder than it has in a while. Steam just set an all-time concurrent record, the Arc Raiders comeback turned into a real spike, and a packed week of releases is two days away. Here is your morning brief.
The big one
Steam set a new all-time concurrent user record of 43,505,724 on Sunday, according to Eurogamer, citing SteamDB. That figure counts every signed-in user, in-game or not, and it is the highest in Steam’s 23-year history. The in-game portion also set a record, passing 14 million players online at the same time. The previous high was around 42 million, set in January 2026, so this is the second time Steam has broken its own record this year.
The lift came from a wave of free-to-play and live games rather than a single tentpole. The freshly launched Aion 2 peaked at 397,905 concurrent players, and Deadlock jumped to 262,145 on the back of a major update. Both are free, both are sticking on the top of the charts, and both are pulling new users into the storefront with them. The Steam Autumn Sale ended shortly before the record fell, which makes the timing a little odd and the number more impressive. Forza Horizon 6, by the way, remains Steam’s biggest new release of 2026 by revenue, per recent Valve estimates.
Our read: the headline number is 43.5M, but the more useful one is 14M in-game. Concurrent users on Steam have been climbing steadily for years as the platform adds more non-game apps, chat, and store traffic, so the in-game peak is the cleaner signal of “how many people are actually playing right now.” Aion 2 and Deadlock doing the heavy lifting is also a small vindication of the live-service model, in a year when so many launches have stumbled.
Also happening
- Arc Raiders surged to 185,000 concurrent Steam players over the weekend, the first time the third-person extraction shooter has cleared that mark in seven months, per GamesRadar+. The Frozen Trail update and a recent free trial did the work, though a developer at the studio told the site the surge “won’t last forever.” Our Arc Raiders beginner’s guide is the right place to start if you jumped back in.
- Nintendo has “no plans to ditch physical,” vice president and general manager of Nintendo Latin America Bill van Zyll told Coelho no Japão in a YouTube interview. “We go off of what the consumer prefers,” he said, calling the company’s position “agnostic.” The comments land as Sony prepares to end PS5 disc production in early 2028 and Microsoft is widely expected to follow.
- Gears of War: E-Day is still recovering from a DDoS attack that knocked servers offline over the weekend. The Coalition confirmed the cause, and our DDoS story has the timeline. Less than a week after launch, this is the worst possible timing for a competitive shooter.
- Haunted Chocolatier is “more of an action RPG” than Stardew Valley, ConcernedApe told British GQ in a new interview. Boss fights, monsters, and a heavier combat focus are in, with the developer still the only person working on it. Our write-up has the quotes and the 50M Stardew sales context.
- Ravenswatch added Kintarō as a new playable hero in today’s update, the roguelite’s first post-launch hero. We have the launch trailer and the Steam DLC details.
- SCREW IT, the Japanese voice-chat betting quiz party game from 352 Interactive, locked a Q4 2026 Steam window. The 4-8 player online party game is the rare Japan-only Steam release with full English support. Our SCREW IT story has the announcement post and the Steam page.
Out today
A quiet Monday on the calendar. Nothing major releases today, and the next big launches are Planet Zoo 2 and Valor Mortis on October 13, followed by Castlevania: Belmont’s Curse, the It Takes Two Switch 2 edition, Ratatan, and Toy Story 3 Complete Edition on October 15. Good day to clear the backlog before the rush.
Deal of the day
Death’s Door is $1.99 on Steam, 90% off the regular $19.99. Acid Nerve’s 2021 action-adventure holds a Metacritic 85 and a 2021 Game Awards nomination, and it is the right size for a quiet Monday afternoon if you have never played it. The discount is part of the publisher’s autumn sale window.
One more thing
Star Wars: Galactic Racer is out, and the breakout star is a barely-explained crocin named Biddy Blas. PC Gamer has the full rundown on why the algorithm keeps shoving this shrill-voiced, delusional Huttball-player-turned-jazz-trumpeter into everyone’s feeds, and Lucasfilm Games executive producer Craig Derrick is delighted about it on X. Glup Shitto energy in 2026 form, and a perfect mascot for a small Star Wars racing spinoff.
Edited by Kerwin Stewart, Editor-in-Chief · How we report
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