Minecraft experienced significant connectivity issues on Monday, with over 2,200 players reporting problems by 10:30 a.m. PST. This number rose to over 5,000 by 10:41 a.m. and nearly 7,000 by 10:57 a.m., primarily related to server connections.
Minecraft Realms experienced a significant outage on January 10, 2026, affecting both Bedrock and Java Edition users. The disruption began around noon Eastern Daylight Time, with over 4,000 players reporting issues accessing paid Realms servers. Users were unable to load their worlds or connect to multiplayer servers for extended periods. The community expressed frustration over the lack of communication from Mojang regarding the outage, with players highlighting the disappointment of being unable to access a paid service.
On December 24, around 1 PM ET, Steam users experienced significant disruptions, affecting access to the game store and online gaming. SteamDB's status page indicated that the Steam Store, Steam Community, and Steam Web APIs were offline. By 1:15 PM ET, DownDetector recorded over 6,000 outage reports. Valve's mobile applications were also inaccessible, impacting popular games like Team Fortress 2, Dota 2, and Counterstrike 2. Recovery began around 4 PM ET, and by 6 PM ET, the platform had largely returned to normal, although some services remained sluggish and many online games were still experiencing partial outages or were down. This incident follows a previous significant disruption in October and accessibility issues during the launch of Hollow Knight: Silksong in September.
The launch of Hollow Knight: Silksong has caused significant traffic and service slowdowns on major gaming platforms, including Steam, PlayStation, Xbox, and Nintendo eShop. Despite user complaints, there has been no official response from the platforms or Team Cherry. Reports of outages on Steam increased, with users facing difficulties in purchasing the game, although it is available on other platforms like Humble Bundle. Over 100,000 players logged in on Steam shortly after launch. Reviews for the game are currently unavailable as review codes were not distributed before release. As the day progressed, outage reports began to decrease, and Steam reported nearly 36 million active users, although performance remained slower than usual. The issues were primarily attributed to the overwhelming demand for the game, which launched at 10 AM ET.
On July 1, Russian authorities began a nationwide trial to restrict access to messaging platforms Telegram and WhatsApp, following President Putin's signing of legislation for a state-controlled "sovereign messenger." Users across Russia reported outages of these services around 11 PM on June 30, with nearly 12,000 outage reports for Telegram and 1,500 for WhatsApp recorded within 24 hours, primarily from the Nizhny Novgorod region and the Republic of Tatarstan. Analysts view this as a "targeted shutdown" in preparation for a potential complete ban, noting that competing platforms did not face similar issues and that access was quickly restored via VPN. This trial follows a law enacted on June 24 for the development of a state-controlled messaging platform under FSB supervision, with plans for features like encrypted chats and digital ID. Additionally, legislation approved earlier in June requires the establishment of a national messaging platform by 2026 to replace foreign applications for official and public use.