The top 10 fighting games on PC at the start of 2024

2023 was a pretty great year for fighting games all around, and this new year is looking like it could be just as good if not better.

Now that we’ve hit January, we felt it’s time to take a closer look at the growing PC playerbase in the FGC to see what the most popular fighting games are at the start of 2024.

Like we’ve done the past few years, we’ll be pulling our numbers from Steam Charts to put these rankings together.

As for what counts, we’re specifically looking at the 24-hour peak and 30-day average numbers to get the best sense of how the games are performing.

When looking at the scene a year ago, things are over all looking stronger considering there were only six games averaging above 1,000 concurrent players at any given time, but that number has grown to nine at the start of 2024.

Games like Mortal Kombat X, Street Fighter 5, The King of Fighters 15, and MultiVersus have all dropped off the top charts or been replaced by successors.

Compared to how the games were shaping up the last time we checked back in July, though, the ranks are more similar besides Tekken 7 dropping a bit as we approach Tekken 8’s arrival and Mortal Kombat’s players being split between 1 and 11.

Street Fighter 6’s concurrent users have naturally dropped since the game was a month old, but it’s still holding strong at the top of the charts.

Capcom’s flagship fighting game still pulled in over 21,000 players at once today on Steam and an average of over 12,000 this past month, which remains higher than any other traditional fighting game we’ve ever seen on the platform.

Technically speaking, however, Brawlhalla did technically beat out SF6 slightly in terms of the 30-day average since it’s sitting at 13,440, but no other game in the genre is close to these two in terms of numbers — with this platform fighter being free to play.

We combined the full game and free versions of Granblue Fantasy Versus: Rising together, 3,941 and 1,060 respectively, to show some pretty nice numbers for the newly released title.

If you separated them, that would bump down the full version of Granblue to sixth, but the free version would still be on the list too by bumping out Rivals of Aether.

Even with its new game on the horizon, Tekken 7 is still holding strong in the PC space while the Tekken 8 Demo made the charts as well, which is promising for the full deal.

Back in October, there was a time when Mortal Kombat 11 was actually beating out Mortal Kombat 1 on Steam, and while the new game has pulled ahead, it’s still surprisingly close.

Guilty Gear Strive’s player numbers have significantly increased over where they were in July likely thanks to Season 3’s additions and Hackerman hopefully being dealt with for good.

Dragon Ball FighterZ is slightly higher as well after its rollback beta test last month though we’ll be waiting to see what the full effects will be once the feature is added for good.

That addition of rollback in Samurai Shodown unfortunately didn’t have much of an impact on its player numbers with it only averaging 26 players at any given time the past month.

And finally, Rivals of Aether is still barely hanging onto the number 10 spot and the only game averaging below 1,000 on the top charts though we’ll be seeing how its sequel performs here soon as well.

A year ago, Street Fighter 5 was the fourth most popular fighting game on Steam with an average of around 1,800 players, but that number as dropped off dramatically to just 243 with everyone basically jumping ship to SF6 it seems.

Things are likely going to be shaken up some more later this month when Tekken 8 and Under Night In-Birth 2 fully hit the scene, which is an exciting prospect all around.

2024 is starting pretty strong for fighting games, so here’s hoping that momentum and growth can continue and carry us higher in the months to come.