The 5 Most Played Games on Steam in September

Steam is the leading online store and gaming platform on the PC. The platform transparently provides the number of players connected every minute and in every game. Based on these statistics from September 01st to September 30th, 2020, we've put together a ranking of the most played games on Steam for the month.

Data is based on hours played and peak number of players logged in simultaneously worldwide. The number of copies sold is not taken into account and we can only consider online games to be able to collect such time played statistics, since it is impossible to monitor games not logged into Steam.

Ranking of most played games on Steam for the month of September:

Counter-Strike: Global Offensive

Total hours played between September 01st and September 30th: 449,208,910
Peak number of players logged in simultaneously: 977,769

Another month in a row in the top 1 on Steam. Counter-Strike: Global Offensive (CS:GO) is a multiplayer first-person shooter video game developed by Valve and Hidden Path Entertainment. It is the fourth game in the Counter-Strike series and was released for Windows, OS X, Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 in August 2012, while the Linux version was released in 2014.

It is one of the main competitive games of recent times, along with League of Legends, and has high popularity to this day. It is not surprising that for another month in a row it is the most played game on Steam.

Dota 2

Total hours played between September 01st and September 30th: 302,395,856
Peak number of players logged in simultaneously: 670,547

Another game that doesn't lose its position on PC, Dota 2 is a multiplayer online battle arena (MOBA) developed and published by Valve. The game is a sequel to Defense of the Ancients (DotA), which was a community-created mod for Blizzard Entertainment's Warcraft III: Reign of Chaos and its expansion pack, The Frozen Throne.

Dota 2 is played in matches between two teams of five players, with each team occupying and defending its own separate base on the map. Each of the ten players independently controls a powerful character, known as a "hero", who has unique abilities and different playstyles. During a match, players collect experience points and items for their heroes to successfully defeat the opposing team's heroes in player-versus-player combat. One team wins by being the first to destroy the other team's "Elder", a large structure located in their base.

Only League of Legends manages to displace Dota 2 as the most played MOBA, however LoL is not on Steam and therefore is left out of this list leaving second place as the most played game on Steam in August for Dota 2.

PLAYERUNKNOWN'S BATTLEGROUNDS

Total hours played between September 01st and September 30th: 125,479,004
Peak number of players logged in simultaneously: 403,693

PLAYERUNKNOWN'S BATTLEGROUNDS (PUBG) is a multiplayer online battle royale game developed and published by PUBG Corporation, a subsidiary of the South Korean video game company Bluehole. The game is based on previous mods that were created by Brendan "PlayerUnknown" Greene for other games, inspired by the 2000 Japanese movie Battle Royale, and expanded into a standalone game under Greene's creative direction. In the game, up to a hundred players parachute onto an island and look for weapons and equipment to kill others, avoiding being killed. The safe area available on the game's map shrinks in size over time, directing surviving players to tighter areas to force encounters. The last player or team standing wins the round.

Battlegrounds was first released for Microsoft Windows through Steam's early access beta program in March 2017, with a full release in December 2017. The game was also released by Microsoft Studios for Xbox One through their program. Xbox Game Preview in the same month, and officially released in September 2018. A free-to-play mobile version for Android and iOS was released in 2018, as well as a port for the PlayStation 4. A version for the streaming platform Stadia was released. released in April 2020. Battlegrounds is one of the best-selling and most played video games of all time. The game has sold over 70 million copies by 2020, with PUBG Mobile having been downloaded over 600 million times.

Among Us

Total hours played between September 01st and September 30th: 108,543,807
Peak number of players logged in simultaneously: 438,524

Among Us is an online multiplayer social deduction game, developed and published by the American game studio InnerSloth and released on June 15, 2018, but became free-to-play only in July 2020 and became popular among streamers. The game is set in a space-themed environment, where each player faces one of two roles, the majority being Crewmates, and a predetermined number being Impostors.

The Crewmates' objective is to identify the Impostors, eliminate them, and complete tasks around the map; The Imposter's objective is to sabotage and secretly kill the Crewmates before they complete all their tasks. Through a plurality of votes, players believed to be Enforcers can be removed from the game. If all Imposters are eliminated or all tasks are completed, Crewmates win; if there are an equal number of Imposters and Crew Members, or if a critical sabotage is not resolved, Imposters win.

Although it was initially released in 2018 with little mainstream attention, it has received an influx of popularity in 2020 due to many well-known Twitch streamers and YouTubers playing it. In response to the game's popularity, a sequel, Among Us 2, was announced in August 2020. However, a month later, in September, the planned sequel was canceled with the team shifting focus to improving the original game.

Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six Siege

Total hours played between September 01st and September 30th: 55,687,434
Peak number of players logged in simultaneously: 163,478

Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six Siege is an online tactical shooter video game developed by Ubisoft Montreal and published by Ubisoft. It was released worldwide for Microsoft Windows, PlayStation 4 and Xbox One on December 1, 2015; The game is also scheduled to be released for PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X in 2020. The game places great emphasis on environmental destruction and cooperation between players. Each player takes control of an attacker or defender in different game modes such as rescuing a hostage, defusing a bomb and taking control of an objective within a room. The title has no campaign, but instead features a series of short, offline missions called "situations" that can be played alone. These missions have a loose narrative, focusing on recruits in training to prepare them for future encounters with the "White Masks", a terrorist group that threatens the security of the world.