Despite Call of Duty: Black Ops 6‘s recently launched Squid Game event, the game’s player count has settled at a significantly lower number than it launched with, retaining fewer players than the Call of Duty franchise had at around the same time in 2024, and less than the previous game in the series. Despite enjoying an extremely popular launch, players, at least online, have expressed dissatisfaction with several aspects of Black Ops 6, most notably the game’s monetization.

As reported by Game Rant, Black Ops 6‘s player count, at least on Steam, has seen a drastic decrease since the time of the game’s launch. According to the Steam Charts, Black Ops 6 lost about 72,000 average players in December 2024, and numbers are only continuing to drop at the start of 2025, despite the release of new content. While the causes of this drop aren’t certain, it is notable that Black Ops 6 has drawn a considerable amount of negativity from its player base on social media.

Black Ops 6 Fans Are Not Thrilled About The Squid Game Collaboration

The New Squid Game Event For Black Ops 6 Seems To Be Contributing To A Falling Player Count

As has already been noted, Black Ops 6‘s Squid Game event has proven to be unpopular, drawing backlash from players for being the first event in the game to have a monetized Premium Track. Notably, however, as the Squid Game event launched on January 3, most of the game’s lost players (at least so far) can’t be attributed to the event alone. Black Ops 6 has drawn backlash for several reasons, not only relating to monetization, which all could have had a part in the game’s falling player count.

According to Steam Charts, Black Ops 6 peaked in November 2024, and subsequently suffered a massive dropoff in December, losing 43.56% of its average players, and so far is down 7.26% in January 2025.

It should also be noted that a shrinking audience is also fairly natural for any game with a hyped launch – especially for Black Ops 6, which broke several records at launch and peaked at above 300,000 concurrent players on Steam. Games with successful launches rarely retain their peak player count at launch, as only core audience members are likely to stick around in the long term. Even with this caveat, however, Black Ops 6‘s drastically shrinking audience points to the game having issues that it needs to address.

Our Take: What Can Be Done To Salvage The Black Ops 6 Player Count?

Black Ops 6 Needs To Curb Monetization And Address Gameplay Issues

While it can be hard to attribute a dropping player count to any one issue, Black Ops 6 fortunately has several problems it can try to fix, according to online fans. One common complaint is that the game’s online play is plagued by hackers, and although a future update to strengthen the game’s anti-cheat has been promised, many players feel that the BO6 has been too slow to address gameplay issues, and too quick to add microtransactions. Occasions like the Squid Game event, which should draw players in, seem to instead be driving them away.

It’s easier said than done to just “fix the game”, but curbing Black Ops 6‘s monetization could be a relatively easy way to stop alienating players, many of whom see the game’s many microtransactions as exploitative, especially on top of the base $69.99 price tag. Again, it’s hard to say how much of the game’s shrinking audience is due to a natural fall-off, but a not-insignificant amount is likely due to ever-increasing monetization and a perceived lack of care towards gameplay issues – which are things that Black Ops 6 will need to address to win back its audience.