Another year over, a new one just begun, which means, impossibly, even more games.> But what about last year? Which were the games that most people were buying and, more importantly, playing? As is now something of a tradition, Valve have let slip a big ol’ breakdown of the most successful titles released on Steam over the past twelve months.

Below is the full, hundred-strong roster, complete with links to our coverage if you want to find out more about any of the games, or simply to marvel at how much seemed to happen in the space of 52 short weeks.

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The relaxed mining of Steamworld Dig 2 is still satisfying my desire to burrow deep underground but today I am reminded of another (more disastrous) subterranean delight. Sci-fi management sim Oxygen Not Included [official site] has recently been given an earthy update, bringing both oil and petroleum to the cavernous underbelly of your homely asteroid. These fossil fuels are bound to be a safe source of energy for your space colony, and will not result in any of the game s Rimworld-esque disaster cascades. However, if you are a bit of an Over-cautious Oscar, don t worry, the developers have also added some hazmat suits. (more…)

Judging by the survivalist Don t Starve and subterranean piss manager Oxygen Not Included, Klei are very good at drawing cartoony things and then secretly planting loads of quite-good cogs and switches behind it all. It looks like they re trying for another good un. Griftlands [official site] has been announced at E3. It s a sci-fi RPG where everything is negotiable: money, loyalty even morality , says the developer. But you can see what it looks like down here. … [visit site to read more]

For thirty-eight long years, you people have looked to me to inform you which ten games sold best on Steam over the past week. That time is now at an end.

But evil never dies.

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Oxygen Not Included [official site] is a space colony management sim from Klei, the guys behind the excellent Invisible Inc. It’s been in alpha since February but now it’s launched on early access, and I’m intrigued.

It’s got the aesthetic of Don’t Starve, another Klei game, and involves building up a settlements beneath the surface of a distant planet and battling through the inevitable crises, whether that’s clouds of poisonous red gas in your base or a shortage of pepper bread. A lot of it is in the style of RimWorld, except it’s all side-on. … [visit site to read more]

Klei are the developers of Invisible, Inc., which is the best turn-based game since Chess. It stands to reason, then, that I’m always going to be interested in their releases, and Oxygen Not Included [official site] has had my interest since I first heard about it. An alpha has been sold for a while but the space colony management sim is moving to the next phase of its release, entering Early Access, on May 18th. The best way to learn about Oxygen Not Included is to look at Brendan’s Premature Evaluation article, which contains very little oxygen but large quantities of piss.

… [visit site to read more]

Every week we warp Brendan into the gaseous caverns of early access to see if he can find precious games worth playing in the gloom. This time, the subterranean space colonisation of Oxygen Not Included [official site]

Everything is covered in piss. When I branded my new space colony Yellow Water Station I did so because I was prompted to come up with a suitable name for a settlement on the interstellar frontier. But all I could think of was how weird it is that astronauts drink their own recycled and purified urine. Yellow Water Station was my puerile attempt at humour. I didn t expect the new underground village I was building to accept its new moniker with such enthusiasm. Now everything is covered in piss, poisonous red gas is building up in the sleeping quarters, and there s a dead body at the bottom of one of the aquifers. … [visit site to read more]

Alec is away this week. I fear that if he can’t find a wifi signal on his travels he might resort to haruspicy to try and find the truths contained within the weekly Steam charts. These round-ups of the ten games with the most cumulative sales over the past week are his obsession and his curse.

This week: while the cat’s away…

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As Old Father Time grabs his sickle and prepares to take ailing 2016 around the back of the barn for a big sleep, we’re looking to the future. The mewling pup that goes by the name 2017 will come into the world soon and we must prepare ourselves for its arrival. Here at RPS, our preparations come in the form of this enormous preview feature, which contains details on more than a hundred of the exciting games that are coming our way over the next twelve months. 2016 was a good one – in the world of games at least – but, ever the optimists, we’re hoping next year will be even better.

… [visit site to read more]

Oxygen Not Included [Steam page] is smooshing together two of my favourite things: colony management simulation, and games by Klei Entertainment, the makers of Invisible, Inc. It appears to be a scifi Dungeon Keeper, or a cutesy Dwarf Fortress, or an underground RimWorld, at least as far as I can tell from the hour-long game stream embedded below.

… [visit site to read more]