Many fans are saying that Call of Duty is back, and it seems that Call of Duty: Black Ops 6 is proving them right as it is already outperforming previous games on its launch day.

Whether it’s because the game has a campaign that is going well or people are simply vibing with the gameplay, Treyarch’s latest entry in the CoD franchise has already peaked at over 229,000 players on Steam on day one. This puts it well above Modern Warfare 3’s 190,273 players at launch in 2023 and close to Modern Warfare 2’s peak of 262,875 players in 2022, according to Steam Charts And Dexerto.

This is big news for Call of Duty, as players have been slowly bleeding out since MW3 launched last year, even with Warzone present in the HQ launcher. Prior to the launch of BO6, CoD’s Steam player count had reached an average of 57,376 players, putting it near a new all-time low, which is still maintained by the September 2023 average of 55,145.

Ahead of what will likely be a weekend surge in players, BO6 is already among the top five games on Steam in terms of player count, just behind PUBG. This also puts it ahead of other popular shooters like Deadlock and Apex Legends.

These numbers don’t reflect Call of Duty’s massive console-playing audience and are diluted even more this year as BO6 is the first Call of Duty game available day-and-date on Xbox Game Pass. This means players can subscribe to Game Pass Ultimate and access the game at no additional cost on Xbox and PC for the first time since Microsoft acquired Activision Blizzard.

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Alongside its growing numbers on Steam, BO6 is also the most popular game on Twitch at launch, with over 370,000 viewers. This game’s player count and viewership is expected to continue to rise throughout the launch weekend, and it looks like Microsoft and Activision have finally given gamers what they’ve been asking for.