Due to various popular streamers, older games are making a return among video game enthusiasts, and numerous older titles are receiving player count increases of well over 100% on PC alone.
Over the last few months and even stretching into mid-2025, many older titles have had a resurgence in popularity for a variety of reasons, with one of these games being Red Dead Redemption 2 (RDR2).
RDR2, produced by Rockstar Games, was initially released in October 2018.
Though due to an update for the game on both PlayStation and Xbox, the game could now run at 60 fps.
This one change brought thousands of players to the game, both returning and new.
This update is not the sole reason for the uptick in popularity, however.
Streamers, such as Jynxzi, among others, began doing marathons of the game, which involved playing the game over the course of a few days, with little breaks.
Another game that saw a spike in player count very recently was Plants Vs. Zombies: Garden Warfare 2 (GW2).
Yet again, this came out nearly a decade ago in February of 2016.
The game has had two distinct player count spikes since its release on PC: one came in July 2024 and the other, more recently, in December 2025.
One thing both spikes have in common is that their primary cause stemmed from the game going on sale for as little as $3.
This decreased price makes this older game much more attractive to both returning players from the console and new players who may want to try the game for the first time.
Another reason for the more recent spike is increased support stemming from popular streamers playing the game in front of large audiences, around 40,000 for popular streamers.
While many of these games were never dead or ever had an egregiously low player count, many of them were seeing dips or steady declines in player count over time, then very sharp increases recently.
Geometry Dash, a game considered timeless by many, has seen a steadily increasing player count throughout late 2025, starting around October and continuing into 2026.
The game has increased from a respectable 40,000 concurrent players to 100,000 in early January.
Even though the game has a relatively simple gameplay, this unique aspect fails to bore players; it draws players in.
The game involves only a single control, yet it is considered extremely challenging by many due to its need for precise timing.
While this new player count has been great for most of these games, for some, it has not. GW2 did not have the servers to support such a large number of players.