As we get closer and closer to 2018, eagle-eyed Steam users may have seen something now uncommon -- PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds is back on top. After a year-long slump with the success of Fortnite and other battle royale games, PUBG is seeing its further player growth on PC since January 2018.

Tracked by Steam analytics site Steam Charts, we can look at the trends with more-precise numbers. Although the game peaked in January 2018 with 1.5 million concurrent players and a peak of 3.2 million, the battle royale game that started the trend has a relatively prolonged and substantial descent from the peak of popularity. For instance, November 2017 saw the game's low-point with 418 thousand average players and only 896 thousand peak players. That is a decrease of 73% percent of players -- a heavy hit for developer PUBG Corporation.

However, in a non-negligible turnaround, PlayerUnknown's Battleground is seeing some gains in their numbers. Compared to last month, there is roughly a gain of 6% in players -- the first uptick in over a year. And though other games like CS:GO and Dota 2 may have a higher range of current players, PUBG is topping out for Peak Players in the last 30 days.

What is prompting that growth? It's hard to say for sure. On one end, the PlayStation 4 launch of the game battle royale game just released so there is a chance that is potentially driving interest. Meanwhile, Santa Claus was just added to the game to celebrate Christmas, and there is always success in driving player growth with holiday events.

With that said, the most obvious influence is going to be the newly-released map which released on December 19 on PC. Offering a snow-covered option for players, Vikendi is a nice visual change to the sometimes repetitive scenery.

PUBG is available now on Android, iOS, PC, PS4, and Xbox One; if you wanted to see what the battle royale title is all about, feel free to grab the game on Amazon.