Dota 2's player count has fallen by about a third since Steam's weekly maintenance on Tuesday 27 October, days after it set its highest peak since October 2016. On Steam Charts the daily peak went from 1,069,502 on 27 October to 701,288 on 28 October, a 34% drop. After previous Tuesdays the count was back within about 10% by the next morning; this time it was 30% down, and Valve has not said why.
The leading explanation, from players and Russian outlets, is that idle accounts parked in custom-game lobbies were removed. That is not confirmed.
From a 10-year high to a third gone
October was Dota 2's strongest month in years on Steam Charts. The daily peak passed one million on 10 October and reached 1,096,364 on 25 October, the highest since October 2016. The all-time record, 1,291,328, dates from March 2016.
On 27 October, Dota 2 was ahead of Counter-Strike 2 in 17 of Steam Charts' 24 hourly samples, including the 15:00 to 18:00 UTC samples (1,069,502 against 1,038,254 at 15:01). Most of that lead came overnight, which matters below. CS2's own daily peak that day, 1,132,096, was still higher. By 10:00 UTC on 28 October CS2 was ahead by about 200,000.
The maintenance dip that did not recover
Steam goes down for maintenance on Tuesday evenings, and Dota 2's count has dipped hard in the 22:00 UTC sample on all five Tuesdays since 29 September. The fall on 27 October was in line with the previous Tuesdays:
- 13 October: 628,824 to 394,275
- 20 October: 647,504 to 328,871
- 27 October: 787,368 to 457,853
What was different is the morning after. At 06:00 UTC on 21 October the count was 490,602, against 489,228 a day earlier — flat; after 13 October it was down 10.7%. At 06:00 UTC on 28 October it was 469,800, against 674,366 a day earlier, down 30%. There was a second step down at 02:00 UTC on 28 October (542,029 to 465,609). The slide continued: at 06:00 UTC on 29 October Steam Charts read 333,868, down a further 29% in 24 hours, and Steam's own player-count API reported 340,307 at about 06:50 UTC.
What changed in the game that night
Steam's public branch updated at 21:14 UTC on 27 October (Steam build 26253230), shortly before the 22:00 UTC maintenance dip. The public mirrors logged client build 6969 at 21:15 and 21:20 UTC. It came with no patch notes, and its public files were translation updates in 24 non-English language files plus recompiled binaries. We covered those files in our 7.42 patch tracker. Nothing in them explains a player-count change, so if Valve acted, it was in the binaries or on its servers.
Dota2.ru reported that European players were being disconnected and could not find matches overnight on 27–28 October, and that the problems started before the small client update arrived. An outage alone does not explain a count that keeps falling a day later.
Then there are custom games. Content creator Dmitry "finargot" Plyusnin, in a post Cybersport.ru republished, counted the ten most popular custom games falling from 257,146 players to 469 after the update, with Ratten Run going from 51,236 to 28. Those figures are his; Valve does not publish custom-game counts on Steam Charts, and we could not check them independently.
Bots, idlers or a real exodus?
The custom-game collapse is why most of the community reads this as a cleanup rather than players leaving. The theory is that accounts joined custom-game lobbies and sat there without playing, inflating the concurrent count around the clock. Plyusnin noted that Dota 2's overnight count had climbed through October from about 400,000 to 638,000. Steam Charts fits that pattern: the 06:00 UTC count was 466,067 on 13 October and 674,366 on 27 October, and Dota 2's biggest leads over CS2 on 27 October came in the overnight hours.
What we cannot say is how much of October's growth was real. The Trove of Terror treasure, released 7 October UTC with a new Tidehunter Arcana and the return of the Dread Retribution Drow Ranger Arcana, was the likeliest real driver, and some of the climb will have been genuine players. Steam Charts' 30-day average still read 651,698 on 29 October, up 14% on September's 571,294. That average includes the inflated weeks.
There is precedent. Steam Charts shows Dota 2's monthly average falling 19.96% in March 2026, about 119,000 players, and Metaratings ties that drop to an earlier bot cleanup. Valve did not confirm that one either.
What to watch
The next few daily peaks are the test. Peaks that stay well under 700,000 would support the reading that October's high was partly inflated. Patch notes for build 6969 or a later build would be Valve's first official word.
FAQ
What is the Dota 2 player count right now? Steam's own API reported 340,307 concurrent players at about 06:50 UTC on 29 October 2026. The 28 October daily peak on Steam Charts was 701,288. Steam Charts and Steam's stats page show the live figure.
Why did the Dota 2 player count drop overnight on 27–28 October? Valve has not explained it. The count dipped during Steam's weekly Tuesday maintenance, as it has every Tuesday since late September, but this time it did not recover. Popular custom games were reported to have emptied at the same time, so many players think idle custom-game accounts were removed. Valve has not confirmed that.
Was Dota 2 really at a 10-year high? On Steam Charts, yes: the 1,096,364 peak on 25 October 2026 is the highest since October 2016. How much of it came from idle accounts is not known.
Did Dota 2 pass CS2 in players? On 27 October 2026 Dota 2 led Counter-Strike 2 in 17 of 24 hourly samples on Steam Charts, mostly overnight. CS2's daily peak that day was still higher, and CS2 was back ahead by the next morning.
Did Valve release a patch? No numbered patch. Build 6969 shipped without patch notes, and the latest gameplay patch is still 7.41f.
Sources: Steam Charts (apps 570 and 730), Steam Web API, api.steamcmd.net, GameTracking-Dota2 and d2vpkr mirrors, Dota2.ru, Cybersport.ru, Metaratings. Retrieved 29 October 2026.
