Scump scared for CoD’s future as Black Ops 6 player count nosedives

Ex-Call of Duty pro Scump worries about the franchise’s future since the player count for Black Ops 6 keeps nosediving.

Call of Duty: Black Ops 6 got off to a strong start following its October 2024 launch. Longtime fans and lapsed players praised the new campaign, and even the multiplayer received its fair share of applause.

In addition to first impressions, the hype was most notably evident in engagement numbers. The game’s record-breaking debut made it the “biggest Call of Duty ever,” according to Activision.

But, to the chagrin of the user base, Black Ops 6 has not been able to keep up the momentum. Rampant cheating, botched Ranked Play, and other issues plague CoD on all sides, such that both BO6 and Warzone’s player count have both dropped precipitously.

Scump questions CoD’s downfall as Black Ops 6 loses players

Former pro player Scump has noticed the dropoff, too, and brought it up during a Marvel Rivals livestream. The streamer said in part, “…people are abandoning CoD right now! I mean, f**k me, what is going on with CoD?”

Scump continued, saying that Microsoft’s Activision acquisition convinced him that Call of Duty would be “smooth sailing” from then on out.

He then called out the ongoing hacking problem and the fact that Ranked mode is in a bad state. Ranked’s troubles, in particular, have only been exacerbated by Treyarch’s commitment to keeping cross-play enabled.

And the numbers don’t lie, either. On Steam alone, Black Ops 6 has been on a steady decline. It topped 300,000-plus concurrent players launch and is now struggling to pull in 100,000 concurrents based on Steam Charts data.

Bear in mind that a large portion of players play on console or on PC through Game Pass, so this number may not be representative of the overall decline. And, though it’s a number lower than before, CoD is still one of the most played games on Steam despite this.

The game could also receive a holiday bump, especially with another Double XP weekend expected to kick off on December 25.

For now, though, many players have lost their patience with the game. An update from Activision promises anti-cheat improvements will start rolling out in 2025.