VALORANT's player count has increased drastically over the years as Riot Games' FPS title expanded its global reach with a vibrant esports scene and content-filled updates.

When VALORANT was first released in 2020, many expected it to succeed. After all, Riot Games had decades of experience maintaining live service games, and the first-person shooter genre was long overdue for a worthy competitor.

I also jumped in on the VALORANT bandwagon during its beta, and the game became a core part of our squad game nights. Considering that it has always taken seconds or minutes to find a match in VALORANT, I also wondered how many people actively play VALORANT.

How many active players does VALORANT have?

VALORANT averages between four and six million daily active players on a day-to-day basis. From a monthly outlook, this number ranges between 17 million and 27 million according to two sources: Tracker. gg's VALORANT population stats and ActivePlayer.io's VALORANT stats.

However, considering that Riot Games doesn't reveal the official stats, sources that track VALORANT's player count have to rely on other methods, such as tracking match reports. These numbers are still close assumptions and show how popular VALORANT is.

The numbers could even be higher with VALORANT Mobile's approaching release and the game's console availability. VALORANT's cross-platform compatibility between consoles also merges the player pools for PlayStation and Xbox, which allows for more variety in matchmaking pools.

Is VALORANT or Overwatch more popular?

VALORANT is considerably more popular than Overwatch these days. Overwatch averages around 30,000 and 60,000 active daily players on PC against VALORANT's millions. Despite releasing Overwatch 2, the franchise lost a large portion of its market share with Marvel Rivals adding more salt to its injury.

While Overwatch's player numbers are still respectable, the game is simply past its peak while VALORANT continues to flourish and grow.

Is VALORANT more popular than CS2?

No, VALORANT isn't more popular than CS2, at least when it comes to esports. According to Counter-Strike vs VALORANT reports released by Escharts, CS2 tops VALORANT in all viewership stats.

CS2's active player numbers look to be lower than VALORANT's, based on SteamDB's statistics, but the two games' data providers use different methods to acquire these numbers. So it's not quite possible to compare the two games' exact player counts.

Based on my personal opinions on the matter, I would also say that CS2 could take the lead in esports, but VALORAN may be more popular when considering the two games' player counts.