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Torn has announced that, as of Monday, April 27, their text-based crime RPG has officially surpassed 100,000 daily active players for the first time in the game’s history. Now in its 22nd year of operation. In January 2024, Torn recorded 48,515 daily active players. Just over two years later, that figure has more than doubled, breaking the 100,000 mark for the first time.
Launched in 2004, Torn began life as a bedroom PHP experiment conducted by Joe Chedburn, a 16-year-old college dropout working part-time at Greggs. Today, the game is run by a team of around fifty developers and creatives spread across the globe. Torn’s playerbase has grown with the game, with marriages, births, and even a few real-life job offers resulting from its existence. Its established playerbase of veterans is constantly refreshed, with over 30,000 new citizens arriving in the past year alone, many of whom now likely find themselves on several government watchlists.
Joe Chedburn said of the achievement. “Since our launch in 2004, our daily active players counter has been the primary metric we’ve used to assess the health of Torn‘s playerbase. Breaking the five-digit barrier on the login page counter has been a dream of mine for a very long time, one I genuinely never thought was possible. This incredible growth was made possible by two initiatives. First, we worked hard to increase Torn‘s capacity to host more players through widespread optimisation across our infrastructure and codebase. Second, we pushed our advertising and PR campaigns in multiple new directions. Thankfully, we’ve been successful on both counts.”
With no release dates, no toxic crunch culture, and no shareholders to placate, Torn continues to expand at its own pace. New features and updates are scheduled for 2026 and beyond, with the developers committed to releasing content only when it is ready. That dedication to quality has helped Torn to outlive its rivals, with its longevity meaning it will likely persist beyond the lives of its creators, players, and possibly the internet itself.
