The multiplayer online battle arena League of Legends's player base continues to grow by leaps and bounds. Developer Riot Games announced this week that 5 million players were playing at the same time, a new record for the free-to-play title.
As Riot notes, this is a huge improvement over this fall. In October, they logged 3 million concurrent players. At the time, they were also logging 12 million players per day. Players were averaging 1 billion hours of gameplay per month.
The numbers are more impressive when stacked up against other games. Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 had 1.4 million players battling at the same time on Xbox Live at its peak. Dota 2, the record holder on Steam, logged 300,000 concurrent players earlier this month.
League of Legends has managed to thrive in spite of numerous competitors. Other Defense of the Ancients-inspired games on the market include Dota 2, Heroes of Newerth and SMITE. Like LoL, those games are also free-to-play and supported by optional microtransactions.
LoL has been steadily growing since it first debuted in 2009. A couple recent events may have helped nudge it toward the 5 million player mark, though. This month, the Mac version went live. The third season of competitive play launched in February.
To try out the game for yourself, head to LeagueofLegends.com.
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