We know Tinder has matched with a MOBA and it isn’t Dota 2, but it looks like quite a few more people are matching with this MOBA themselves following the Dota 2 update that improves the 2022 battle pass and offers everyone a free week of Dota Plus. Why do we think that? Well, because the Dota 2 average player count on Steam has risen above 500,000 for the first time in over three years – which is a huge achievement for a game that’s this old.
Spotted by Reddit user ‘eabold’ and confirmed by The Loadout via Steam Charts, Valve’s free-to-play MOBA boasted an average player count of 500,013 at around 17:00 PST / 20:00 EST on September 25 and 01:00 BST on September 26. This surprising revelation is built upon by the fact that the game’s peak player count for the last 30 days is an impressively high 867,484.
While it’s worth noting that at the time of writing this average player count has dropped slightly to just under 498,000 in the last 30 days, it’s still an incredible feat. If you’re wondering why Dota 2 is rising in popularity again at the moment, it could be down to the aforementioned update. However, it could also be down to ‘Grubby’.
Heralded as the most successful professional Warcraft 3 player in his youth, Manuel ‘Grubby’ Schenkhuizen is a full-time content creator that focuses on RTS games and MOBA titles like Starcraft and Heroes of the Storm. Interestingly, over the last month, he has challenged himself to learn Dota 2 with an ‘A to Z challenge’ where he plays one game with every single Dota 2 hero available right now.
It’s a big undertaking, and an amusing one given the fact that his game knowledge could do with improvement. However, it’s this series of streams that some Dota 2 players believe is revitalising interest in the 2013 title.
Dota2 average player count surpasses 500 thousand first time since june 2019. from DotA2
In the comments to the Reddit post above, one player has suggested that Grubby has “revitalised the enthusiasm of veteran players who had quit Dota 2” and has helped to pull in some “fresh blood”. In addition to this, players think Grubby sharing his experience as a beginner is convincing people to give the game a go – if they were on the fence.
Of course, we will never know for sure if Grubby does have this sort of influence, but it’s a welcome sign to see a game that has been in decline for some time start to find its feet again. We know this isn’t available on consoles, though. So, you can find the best free shooting games here and the best free PS5 games (and best free Xbox games) right here.