Yes, Still Huge — but Only Steam Shows Its Numbers
GTA Online is still one of the most-played games in the world in 2026, and the public evidence for that is Steam. Adding GTA V's two Steam versions together, their combined monthly average ran between roughly 90,000 and 143,000 players in-game at any one moment across 2026, with daily peaks far higher.
That is only part of the picture, though, and this article will keep saying so. Steam excludes PlayStation, Xbox, the Epic Games Store and the Rockstar Games Launcher entirely, and its counters include story mode players too. Rockstar and Take-Two publish no console player numbers at all.
So there is no single true "GTA Online player count". There are solid Steam figures, clearly labelled third-party estimates for the whole audience, and a great deal of invented numbers in between. Here is how to tell them apart.
Key Takeaways
- GTA V has two separate Steam listings — Legacy and Enhanced — and any honest Steam count adds them together.
- Combined, they averaged about 90,000 concurrent players in October 2026 and about 143,000 in July 2026 across the month, with December 2025 higher still at roughly 160,000.
- Steam counts include story mode and exclude every console player, so they understate GTA Online's real audience by a wide margin.
- Analyst firm Ampere Analysis has estimated around 18.3 million monthly active players across all platforms for 2025 — an estimate, not a Rockstar figure.
- The count spikes around updates: the Kortz Center Heist month (July 2026) and the Mansions month (December 2025) were Steam's biggest of the past year.
1. The Steam Numbers, Both Versions Added Together
Steam splits GTA V into two apps. GTA V Enhanced averaged 42,979 concurrent players in October 2026 and 74,563 in July 2026, and set its all-time peak of 160,737 in that July. GTA V Legacy averaged 47,173 in October 2026 and 68,906 in July 2026; its all-time peak of 360,761 dates back to April 2015.
Combined, the two versions averaged roughly 149,800 concurrent players in January 2026, about 143,500 in July 2026, and about 90,200 in October 2026. In the days this article was written, their combined 24-hour peaks added up to roughly 128,500 players in-game at once.
July 2026 is not a random spike: the monthly average jumped the month Title Update 1.73 launched with the Kortz Center Heist, and Enhanced's all-time record fell in the same month. Big content moves this game's numbers more than anything else.
One clarification matters for every figure above: "concurrent" means people in-game at the same moment, like a snapshot of a stadium. The number of different people who play across a whole month is far larger than any snapshot.
2. What Steam Cannot See
Start with the biggest blind spot: consoles. PlayStation is widely understood to be GTA Online's largest audience, and neither Sony nor Rockstar publishes live or monthly player counts for it. Every console player is invisible in the Steam data.
PC is only partly visible too. Steam counts its own storefront, but GTA V also sells through the Epic Games Store and Rockstar's own launcher, and none of those players appear. PC roleplay servers run through FiveM, a separate platform again, and are not in these numbers either.
The contamination runs the other way as well: Steam's counters include everyone playing GTA V's story mode. Some share of those 90,000 to 143,000 people were driving around as Franklin, not playing GTA Online at all.
The fair conclusion is not that the Steam numbers are useless — they are real, public and updated constantly. It is that they measure "people running GTA V on Steam", which is a floor under GTA Online's popularity, not the total.
3. The Console-Sized Hole and the Estimates Industry
Because the official numbers stop at Steam, analyst firms fill the gap with estimates. The most widely cited comes from Ampere Analysis, reported through Statista: an estimated average of about 18.3 million monthly active GTA Online players across all platforms in 2025, down from an estimated peak month of 31.4 million in December 2023.
Ampere's figures also capture the update effect on console: it reported console monthly players jumping about 29 percent in December 2025, a rise of roughly 3.7 million, as the Safehouse in the Hills update — the one in our GTA Online mansions guide — pulled players back.
Treat all of these as what they are: professional estimates built from panels and modelling, not counts Rockstar has published or confirmed. They are useful for scale and direction, and worthless as exact figures.
A warning belongs here too. Figures said to come from an April 2026 data breach at Rockstar circulate online as "real" internal player and revenue splits. Rockstar has never confirmed them, so this article does not use them — and neither should any article you trust.
4. Sales and Staying Power
The player base rests on an enormous installed base. Take-Two reported GTA V sales passing 225 million copies by the end of 2025, and its results through 2026 took the total past 230 million. Very few of those owners play daily — but a pool that size explains why the online game refills so fast after every update.
Attention tells the same story. Twitch's own year-end reporting put GTA V as the most-watched game on the platform in 2024, with about 1.4 billion hours watched. A game that old does not top a streaming chart without a living audience behind it.
Rockstar also keeps feeding the audience reasons to return. Title Update 1.73 in July 2026 rebalanced heist payouts across the game, the subject of our heist payout nerfs and economy update explainer, and event weeks keep landing on the regular weekly rhythm.
5. The Honest Trend: Below the Peak, Still Enormous
Honesty requires the other direction too. On Steam, autumn 2026 was the softest stretch of the year: October's combined average of about 90,000 sits well below December 2025's roughly 160,000. Some of that is seasonal, and some is a thirteen-year-old game idling while the whole audience waits for 19 November.
December 2023's estimated 31.4 million monthly players also needs context: that was the month of the first GTA 6 trailer, an all-time anomaly rather than a normal baseline this game has "fallen" from.
The pattern across every dataset is the same. The floor — quiet months, no new content — is still a top-tier player count most games never reach. The ceiling, in update months, rivals anything else on Steam. The weekly reset rhythm of fresh bonuses every Thursday is a large part of why the floor stays so high.
6. What Happens After 19 November
GTA 6 launches on 19 November 2026 as a single-player experience — Take-Two's CEO described it that way on the record — and its multiplayer mode is unannounced. Until Rockstar says otherwise, GTA Online remains the only GTA multiplayer there is.
Expect a visible dip in launch week as players start GTA 6's story; every big release does that to older games. The more useful question is what your own progress is worth in the new era, which our guide to whether GTA Online progress will carry over to GTA 6 answers from Take-Two's own statements.
Take-Two has said it will keep supporting GTA Online after GTA 6's release and beyond. A supported game with this one's floor does not empty out overnight — but anyone quoting you an exact post-launch player count is guessing, and this article will not join them.
Frequently Asked Questions
How many people play GTA Online in 2026?
On Steam, GTA V's two versions combined averaged between roughly 90,000 and 143,000 concurrent players per month across 2026. The true GTA Online total is much higher but unpublished: Steam excludes consoles, other PC stores and counts story mode players too. Analyst estimates put the all-platform monthly audience in the tens of millions.
Is GTA Online still popular in 2026?
Yes, by every public measure. It sits among Steam's most-played games thirteen years after launch, spikes to all-time records for its Enhanced version when major updates land, and remains one of the most-watched games on streaming platforms.
Why are there two GTA V listings on Steam?
Because the March 2025 PC upgrade created a separate Enhanced app alongside the original, which became GTA V Legacy. The two versions have separate player counts, separate sessions and separate Steam pages, so any combined figure has to add both.
Does the Steam player count include story mode?
Yes. Steam counts everyone running GTA V, whether they are in GTA Online or in story mode. That means the Steam figures slightly overstate GTA Online on PC — while understating the game overall by missing consoles and other stores entirely.
How many people play GTA Online on PlayStation and Xbox?
Nobody outside Rockstar and the platform holders knows. Console player counts are not published. Analyst firm Ampere Analysis has estimated the all-platform monthly audience at around 18.3 million for 2025, but that is a modelled estimate, not an official count.
What was GTA Online's peak player count on Steam?
For the individual apps: GTA V Legacy peaked at 360,761 concurrent players in April 2015, and GTA V Enhanced peaked at 160,737 in July 2026. Combined daily peaks across both versions have run well above either figure alone in update months.
Is the GTA Online player count going down?
On Steam it cooled through autumn 2026 after huge December 2025 and July 2026 peaks — a normal pattern between major updates, amplified by the wait for GTA 6. It remains far above what almost any other game sustains, and updates reliably reverse the slide.
Are the "18 million monthly players" figures official?
No. That figure is an Ampere Analysis estimate reported through Statista, covering all platforms for 2025. Rockstar and Take-Two do not publish monthly active player numbers for GTA Online, so every all-platform total you see is an estimate of some kind.
When are the most people playing GTA Online?
Around major update launches — December 2025's Mansions update and July 2026's Kortz Center Heist produced the biggest recent Steam months — and during headline event weeks. Day to day, evenings and weekends in the big regions are the busiest times.
Will GTA 6 empty out GTA Online?
A launch-week dip is likely as players start the new story, but GTA 6 arrives as a single-player game with no announced multiplayer, and Take-Two says GTA Online's support continues after launch and beyond. GTA Online stays the GTA multiplayer home for now.
Closing Thoughts
The truthful 2026 answer is two numbers, not one: about 90,000 to 143,000 people in-game at any moment on Steam alone, and an all-platform audience that analysts estimate in the tens of millions each month. Any article giving you one exact figure for the whole game has invented it. This one would rather show its working.
