September’s releases have wrapped up their launch weeks, so we have another exciting list of top games to showcase. As with past months, this list highlights the top 20 products released in September, measured by the revenue they generated during the first two weeks following release. We also have the top 5 free products, measured by peak concurrent player count following release.
We talk about Early Access quite a bit in these posts, and for good reason. With eight titles this month either entering or launching from early access, this model of development continues to be a unique and valuable option for creating a product with involvement and feedback from the community.
Another theme worth highlighting is the continued success of developers launching their first products on Steam. Nine teams this month are bringing a game to Steam for the first time (Green Hell, Gears 5, Session, Ni no Kuni, Crying Suns, Noita, Flotsam, Cube World and Maelstrom). Congrats and welcome!
September’s list featured a surprising number of controller supported games – 18 in total. Supporting is one thing, but we were curious to see how many players are actually using them. In measuring the number of controller sessions for games released in September, we were quite excited with the level of engagement. As some may have expected, Pro Evolution Soccer, NBA2K and CODE VEIN are incredibly popular with controllers - all three landed in the top 10 most controller sessions for September across the entire Steam catalog. It makes sense for those games to see controller use, but other releases from a variety of genres also saw significant controller engagement - Session, River City Girls, Ni no Kuni, Blasphemous, Spyro, Surge 2 and Final Fantasy VIII all registered more than half of their September game sessions from players with controllers. There is no single way of enjoying games on Steam and this is further testament that both players and developers can benefit from a variety of input options.
September's Top Releases
This is the list of September's top releases ordered by release date (we've organized this list on a handy store page too):
Spyro™ Reignited Trilogy - Toys for Bob (US) & Iron Galaxy (US) Spyro is bringing the heat like never before in this remastered collection of the original three games.
Children of Morta - Dead Mage (US) Story-driven action RPG about an extraordinary family of heroes. Will you be able to sacrifice everything to save the ones you care for?
FINAL FANTASY VIII - REMASTERED - Square Enix (Japan) The mega-hit RPG returns with new graphical enhancements and a whole host of options to customize your gameplay experience.
NBA 2K20 - Visual Concepts (US) Best in class graphics & gameplay, ground breaking game modes and unparalleled player control and customization in this latest installment of NBA 2K.
River City Girls - WayForward (US) There's trouble once again in River City and this time only the girls can save the day! Use a variety of attacks, weapons and items as you teach the city’s lowlifes a lesson.
Green Hell - Creepy Jar (Poland) Coming out of Early Access - A sweltering struggle for survival in the Amazonian rainforest with realistic survival techniques, psychological thrills and a daunting and interactive environment.
Gears 5 - The Coalition (Canada) From one of gaming's most acclaimed sagas, Gears is bigger than ever, with five thrilling modes and the deepest campaign yet.
GreedFall - Spiders (France) Engage in a core roleplaying experience with complete freedom of progression, as you forge the destiny of a new world seeping with magic, riches, lost secrets and fantastic creatures.
eFootball PES 2020 - Konami Digital Entertainment (Japan) Experience unparalleled realism, authenticity and a host of new features in this year's definitive football game.
Blasphemous - The Game Kitchen (Spain) A punishing action-platformer that combines the fast-paced, skilled combat of a hack-n-slash game with a deep and evocative narrative core.
Session - creā-ture Studios Inc. (Canada) Just arrived into Early Access - Explore iconic skate spots and master True Stance Stick controls in this authentic experience inspired by the golden era of skateboarding.
AI: The Somnium Files - Spike Chunsoft Co., Ltd. (Japan) Play as detective Kaname Date on the trail of an elusive serial killer in this thrilling, sci-fi murder mystery set in near-future Tokyo.
Ni no Kuni Wrath of the White Witch™ Remastered - Level-5 (Japan) & QLOC (Poland) Journey back to the captivating story and all-star production in this visually stunning RPG with improved graphics and performance.
Crying Suns - Alt Shift (France) Uncover an epic story and unravel the truth about the empire as you take the role of fleet commander in this tactical rogue-lite journey through space.
Hot Lava - Klei Entertainment (US) Run, jump, climb, and surf across nostalgia-packed environments flooded with hot molten lava. Explore alone, or join your friends. And whatever you do, don’t touch the floor.
The Surge 2 - Deck13 (Germany) Fight ferocious threats in brutal, unforgiving combat, slashing and tearing the limbs off your opponents to steal their equipment, as you try to survive in the devastated Jericho City.
Noita - Nolla Games (Finland) Just arrived into Early Access - A magical action roguelite set in a world where every pixel is physically simulated. Fight, explore, melt, burn, freeze and evaporate your way through a procedurally generated world using spells you've created.
CODE VEIN - Bandai Namco Studios (Japan) Team up and embark on a journey to the ends of hell to unlock your past and escape your living nightmare in this action packed RPG with deep character customization.
Flotsam - Pajama Llama Games (Belgium) Just arrived into Early Access - Scavenge what precious garbage you can from the ocean's surface and grow your city while doing your best to survive in this colorful post-apocalyptic floating garbage town survival game.
Cube World - Picroma (Germany) Voxel-based action RPG with a focus on exploration in a procedurally generated fantasy world made up entirely of cubes.
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September's Top Free Releases
I Love You, Colonel Sanders - Psyop (US) Welcome to the most delicious dating simulator ever created. Do you have what it takes to become a business partner and win the heart of the most famous chicken salesman of all time?
Territory Idle - Aleksandr Golovkin (Russia) Coming out of Early Access - A strategic simulation where you develop a kingdom through new tiles that yield gold, territory, perks, heroes and more.
PlanetSide Arena - Daybreak Game Company (US) Just arrived to Early Access - Dive into PlanetSide Arena and battle online in this massive multiplayer sci-fi arena shooter, with multiple classes, jetpacks class and futuristic vehicles.
Firestone Idle RPG - Holyday Studios (Cyprus) Just arrived to Early Access - Reclaim the firestones in this idle-rpg where you select different heroes, create battle formations, collect new gear and battle undead and orc forces.
Maelstrom - Gunpowder Games, Inc. (US) Coming out of Early Access - Fast-paced naval battles in a grim fantasy world of leviathans, warships & magic! Upgrade ships & crew to become the most powerful warship to sail the Abyssal Ocean!
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If you're curious about previous months, here are more Top Release links:
Introducing a new Steam feature that lets you play your couch co-op games with friends over the internet, together.
Update 10/29 — Remote Play Together Beta functionality is now available to all who use the released version of Steam!
Now in Beta! With Remote Play Together, you can now invite Steam Friends to join your local co-op, local multiplayer, and shared/split screen games online. Up to four players,or even more in ideal conditions, can instantly join in the fun. Only the host needs to own and install the game, while additional players connect through Steam Remote Play streaming technology.
From your Friends list in the Steam Overlay, select Remote Play Together. Once they accept...
3. You're playing together.
Their controllers will act as if they're plugged directly into your computer, and all your voice chat and game volume options are available in one place.
To keep things simple, only the game is displayed to your Friends, never your desktop or other Top Secret stuff. You can share — or limit access to — the keyboard and mouse. It’s your choice.
Stream video, audio, input, and voice between players
Use your own controllers, or share control of the keyboard & mouse
Play together across PC, Mac, and Linux
During the Beta we'll be improving network stability and compatibility across a variety of hardware. We're excited to hear feedback from you in our Discussion Forums.
So check out Steam's growing list of thousands of supported titles, and help us test when you invite a friend to Play Together today!
Since bringing Steam Remote Play out of Beta it's been exciting to see the huge variety of games that it’s being used with. For a start, games with great controller support are being widely played on TVs. On mobile we've seen that some genres are more likely to be played on phones and tablets such as RPG, strategy, adventure, visual novel, and card games. Some games work great with a simple direct or trackpad cursor. But for other games, when default touch controls aren't provided, many players launch the game and then end up playing something else.
So to improve the experience we put together default touch configurations for over 100 of the most common and desired Remote Play games. We learned a lot about how to build fun touch controllers throughout this processes and would like to share a few interesting case studies.
Launched last week, this is a classic-style RPG that plays great with a fairly typical gamepad layout. But on closer inspection there’s a few things worth pointing out.
The developers have done an excellent job implementing full Steam Input API support. This allows the game to automatically adjust the button layout depending on the current gameplay mode. For example, in menus a D-Pad appears for easy navigation, while navigating the world uses the more comfortable Analog Stick. In the screenshot above there are buttons with special icons for calling your fast travel pals. Then in battle mode the fast travel buttons automatically disappear. All of the possible actions in each mode were easy to discover and lay out because of their Steam Input implementation.
Here's another RPG with a significant percentage of players using Steam and Xbox controllers. But since it’s a native PC game its control scheme is anything but typical.
In this game the X button uses your farming tools. They're used rapidly and extremely often, so we enlarged the button to make it easy to press without looking. The arrow buttons cycle through your quick-bar items, and each of the sub menus have been given a helpful icon for quick access. The top center of the screen is sometimes used for dialog, so we moved the Steam button to the upper left. We also moved the keyboard button which is used for giving everything on your farm personalized names. The rest of the screen acts as a cursor trackpad for easily organizing the inventory.
Let’s examine one final action game with an extremely specialized control scheme. Session is a skateboarding simulator that entered early access last week. The way that each foot is controlled by an Analog Stick gives it an intuitive feel on mobile, almost like playing with a Fingerboard.
Tricks are activated using various move combinations with both thumbs, just like controlling both feet. The placement of the X and A buttons let you naturally push off with the left or right foot, and leaning is done with the Left and Right Trigger buttons. In the future we’d like to experiment with leaning using the gyroscope so that we can steer while doing our goofy foot pop shuvits.
Remote Play Optimized
After adding default configurations to this long list of games we’ve seen a steady increase in players using Remote Play. We've also added store hubs for phone, tablet, and TV, in addition to a Library filter so that it's easy to find the best games while on those devices.
We can't wait to feature even more games on these pages, so have a look at our partner documentation to create a default touch configuration for your game. This also includes a new API for detecting the type of device used so that the game is able to adjust resolution and UI as needed.
We're back with another round of popular monthly releases. With this list, we'll be looking at the Top 20 products released in August, measured by revenue generated during the first two weeks following each game's release. We'll also be looking at the Top 5 free titles from August, measured by peak concurrent player count following release.
Global representation continues to be a huge theme this month when looking at where the top products are coming from. We were pretty excited seeing 13 countries represented in our last top release list, so it's great to see that number already surpassed with 15 different countries this month (check each game for details).
It's also inspiring to see that new developers are continuing to find success on the platform. With August's list, we're welcoming 12 development teams who are bringing products to Steam for the fist time (Hide or Die, Ion Fury, Shortest Trip to Earth, We Need to go Deeper, UnderMine, Monster Sanctuary, The Dark Pictures Anthology: Man of Medan, Re:Legend, Steel Circus, Hobs, Undefeated and Rise of Legions).
We thought it would be interesting this month to learn more about the teams bringing a product to Steam for the first time. Many developers come into the industry in different ways, so we caught up with some of these teams to hear a bit about their diverse backgrounds. Here's what we learned:
Shortest Trip to Earth - Interactive Fate The original team members met at The University of Tartu in Estonia. Edvin & Toomas were teaching a commercial game design course, while lead artist, Taavi, was one of their students.
Monster Sanctuary - Moi Rai Games What started as a solo project for Denis, lead programmer, artist, composer, and designer, ended up becoming a family affair when his brother Anton joined to help finish the game down the stretch.
Rise of Legions - Broken Games The team studied computer science together, learning to code in Delphi. It's not historically thought of as a game language, but Rise of Legions is now one of the world's most-used Delphi applications.
Hide or Die - VecFour Digital A successful Kickstarter campaign allowed the small development team to quit their day jobs and focus on building Hide or Die full-time.
UnderMine - Thorium Working together for a combined 30 years in the game industry, Clint and Derek spent countless lunch breaks talking about their favorite game mechanics and design elements.
UNDEFEATED - Undefeated Games Created by three students of the Vantan Game Academy in Osaka, Japan. When development began, Yuma and Daigo were beginning their second year of study, with Fuko only in her first year.
Ion Fury - Voidpoint LLC Most of the team came from modding backgrounds with extensive amounts of time spent creating Build Engine content. Ion Fury represents their first full commercial collaboration together.
August's Top Releases
Here is the list of August's top new releases ordered by release date (we've added this list to a handy store page too):
Hide or Die - VecFour Digital (US) Just arrived into Early Access - Large scale asymmetrical multiplayer horror. You can either fight against the darkness corrupting the world or embrace it.
Age of Wonders: Planetfall - Triumph Studios (Netherlands) From Triumph Studios, the creators of Age of Wonders, featuring tactical turn-based combat and in-depth empire building in an all new sci-fi setting.
Cliff Empire - Lion's Shade (Ukraine) Coming out of Early Access - Compact city building and simulation in a sci-fi world where nuclear war has rendered surface life impossible.
Metal Wolf Chaos XD - General Arcade (Singapore) FromSoftware, Inc (Japan) This modernized re-release of FromSoftware's classic mech shooter features upgraded visual fidelity, refined controls and gameplay, a save system and 4K support.
Dicey Dungeons - Terry Cavanagh (UK) In this fast-paced deckbuilding roguelike you'll fight monsters, find better loot and level up your heroes as you work together to take down the Goddess of Fortune, Lady Luck herself.
Ion Fury - Voidpoint LLC (US) Coming out of Early Access - Classic '90s FPS action created on Build Engine, famously known for classic first-person shooters like Duke Nukem 3D, Shadow Warrior, and Blood.
Shortest Trip to Earth - Interactive Fate (Estonia) Coming out of Early Access - Embark on a perilous journey across the universe in this roguelike spaceship simulator focused on exploration, ship management and tactical battles.
Age of Empires: Definitive Edition - Forgotten Empires (US) Tantulus (Australia) The pivotal real-time strategy game that launched a 20-year legacy returns with modernized gameplay, all-new 4K visuals, 8-person multiplayer battles and a host of other new features.
We Need To Go Deeper - Deli Interactive (US) Coming out of Early Access - DIVE. DISCOVER. DIE. Crew a submarine with friends in a unique 4-player cooperative submarine roguelike set in a Verne-inspired undersea universe.
RAD - Double Fine Productions (US) A 3D action roguelike set in a post-post-apocalyptic world, where humanity has faced Armageddon not once, but twice.
Remnant: From the Ashes - Gunfire Games (US) Scavenge, upgrade and specialize in this third-person survival action shooter set in a post-apocalyptic world overrun by monstrous creatures.
UnderMine - Thorium (Canada) Just arrived into Early Access - Adventure deep into the roguelike adventure of UnderMine and discover powerful relics, deadly enemies, hidden secrets, and a few friends to help along the way.
ONINAKI - Tokyo RPG Factory (Japan) A fast-paced action-RPG adventure with deep character customization, powerful in-game cut scenes and a visual system drawn to convey the drastic contrast between the ‘Living World’ and the ‘Beyond’.
Telling Lies - Sam Barlow & Furious Bee Limited (UK) Four private lives. One big lie. Search through secretly recorded video conversations to discover the truth. The successor to the acclaimed Her Story.
Hunt: Showdown - Crytek (Germany) Coming out of Early Access - Competitive first-person PvP bounty hunting with heavy PvE elements. Set in the darkest corners of the world, it packs the thrill of survival games into a match-based format.
Pagan Online - Mad Head Games (Serbia) Coming out of Early Access - Pagan Online is a fast-paced hack-and-slash action RPG that will challenge your skill in brutal and satisfying combat against countless enemies and larger than life bosses.
Monster Sanctuary - Moi Rai Games (Germany) Just arrived into Early Access - Monster taming meets Metroidvania, as you collect, train and battle monsters in a lovely side-view pixel world.
The Dark Pictures Anthology: Man of Medan - Supermassive Games (UK) The Dark Pictures Anthology is a series of stand-alone, branching cinematic horror games. In Man of Medan, five friends set sail on a holiday diving trip that soon changes into something much more sinister.
Blair Witch - Bloober Team (Poland) Inspired by the cinematic lore of Blair Witch - experience a new story-driven psychological horror game that studies your reactions to fear and stress.
Re:Legend - Magnus Games Studio (Malaysia) Just arrived into Early Access - Adventure with friends in a beautiful world of wonder and fantastic creatures. Build, craft, farm, fish, raise and breed amazing pet companions!
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August's Top Free Releases
Steel Circus - Iron Mountain Interactive (Austria) Just arrived into Early Access - Players control one of several champions with unique abilities, while competing in online matches in the solar system's largest sporting event
Steambirds Alliance - Spry Fox (US) Coming out of Early Access - A massively-cooperative bullet-hell shooter! Fly with dozens of your feathered friends in an open world full of cruel cat bosses and endless waves of deadly bullets.
Hobs - Teneke Kafalar Studios (Turkey) Just arrived into Early Access - A unique combination of deckbuilding and tabletop turn-based strategy with endless customization options and new heroes to explore.
UNDEFEATED - UNDEFEATED Games (Japan) Live the dream of becoming a super hero with unlimited powers as you fly through the city, patrol the streets and engage in dynamic high-speed mid-air boss battles.
Rise of Legions - Broken Games (Germany) Coming out of Early Access - A hybrid MOBA, tower defense and deckbuilding experience with fast-paced, easy-to-pickup tug-of-war strategy. Play solo or bring a friend.
We’ve worked with indie game developer Lars Doucet of Level Up Labs to bring his novel Diving Bell prototype to Steam Labs in the form of the Deep Dive experiment, where it now directly leverages Steam APIs to serve up recommendations and related game information. The new experiment offers an exploratory interface to discover new games based on their similarity to familiar ones, plus the ability to use these recommendations themselves as jumping-off points to dive even deeper into what Steam has to offer. 🌊
Deep Dive leverages tags provided by each game’s creators and the Steam Community of users to identify games similar to the ones you know and love. In the interest of helping users explore a breadth of games, Deep Dive displays very similar, somewhat similar, and little-known but well-loved similar games among each set of recommendations it displays. Explore Steam’s popular new releases as a jumping off point, or log in to begin exploration from one of your own recently played games. How many degrees of separation do you find between No Thing and Everything? We count six, which checks out with Bacon’s Law.
Deep Dive’s variation from the original prototype is based on some things we learned by playtesting during development. For example, tags the base game shares in common with each recommendation are more prominently displayed to help inform both what the game is about and why it was recommended.
We’ve tried to strike the right balance between providing relevant details without overwhelming users in the process of browsing and we hope you’ll let us know what you think. We can’t help but add a few items to our own wishlists each time we test Deep Dive. (Well hello, Circa Infinity!) We suspect this is a good sign of its potential, and we’d love your thoughts on whether Deep Dive offers a compelling alternative to other forms of content discovery.
Experiment 006: Community Reviews
Your Steam Friends list and activity feeds are great ways to see what games your buddies are currently enjoying, but what about the rest of the Steam Community? Top sellers are one way to keep your finger on the pulse, but positive reviews can be an even stronger signal of what the Community is enjoying on Steam. With this in mind, our Community Reviews experiment surfaces the games people are actively recommending to one another on Steam.
Update - Experiment 002: The Interactive Recommender
The Interactive Recommender doesn’t need you to interact with it before proving itself useful, so we’ve given it a chance to earn its keep right on the Steam Store home page. Simply log into the Steam store and you’ll see games our machine learning server has lovingly featured just for you based on your recent gameplay. Plus, click through to Steam Labs where you can explore titles new or old, popular or niche, with the machine’s bespoke take on your tastes, informed by thousands of other players... a lot like you.
As always, we hope you’ll check out these latest and upcoming additions to Steam Labs and let us know what you think in the discussions. Your feedback shapes our experimentation and informs the ideas which become a part Steam for keeps.
Opting in to the Steam Client Beta lets you use the latest features before they're released, not just the New Steam Library.
Follow the instructions below to participate in the Steam client beta:
With Steam running, click on "Steam" in the upper left, then choose the "Settings" menu. (Preferences on Mac) or follow this link.
On the "Account" tab under "Beta Participation" click the "Change..." button.
Select the "Steam Beta Update" from the drop down list and click "OK".
You will be prompted to restart Steam, please select the "Restart Steam" button.
We want to know what you think!
We've done our best to make improvements that we believe evolve the Steam Library experience to make it better and more relevant for everyone. Let us know what you think, we'll be making improvements throughout the Beta period.
Since launching Steam Labs, Community feedback on our initial Store discovery experiments has lead us to create a number of new features and improvements we're excited to share.
What we've learned
We've received really positive feedback since launching the Interactive Recommender. We've heard from many of you that the Interactive Recommender is helping you are find interesting games, and we also see this reflected in our early data. One way we study what’s interesting to users is to look at how frequently a visit to a store page turns into a positive action like adding the item to a wishlist, or purchasing it. That frequency varies depending on how users arrived at the store page. We also look at how frequently people choose to visit a store page via the recommender.
Our initial data show the Interactive Recommender is performing very well by those measures. We do of course take these signs with grain of salt, given the novelty and promotion of our experiment likely make for an unfair comparison. Next up, we will work to evaluate the recommender in ways that eliminate this potential bias.
Furthermore, we're especially pleased to see that users are being exposed to a broad range of titles. In fact, nearly 10,000 different games have been added to wishlists from the Interactive Recommender page so far. So yeah, initial signs indicate the Interactive Recommender experiment is working!
Episode 1 of the Automatic Show, a half-hour algorithmically-generated video about Steam games, was received by the Community with a more mixed response. While much of the feedback we received has indicated that the show's utility and format have promise, we did hear from many users that 30 minutes is... a lot of minutes. If this rings true for you, we now offer three new short variations of the initial half-hour experience that we hope you'll enjoy.
You can now tell the interactive recommender to exclude some of your recently played games when generating recommendations for you. By default, the set of games that are excluded in this way is taken from your global Steam ignore list here. If you've chosen to ignore a game via its store page, we won't use it to generate recommendations for you, but you can now interactively toggle excluded games on and off to see the effect that has on your recommendations. (Toggling the exclusion state of games via the interactive recommender in this way will not affect those Steam-wide ignore settings.) If you want to ignore a particular game across all of Steam, you can set that on the store page for that game. Let us know how this feature works for you!
User interface improvements
Your feedback has also informed a few minor improvements to the interface. For example, hovering over a played game in the left-hand column now displays the title of the game, which is useful when the thumbnail art itself is not so legible, and clicking a game in the played list now navigates to its store page, as one might expect.
Always training
The interactive recommender model adapts in two ways. First, it adapts right away to an individual user's behavior; as you play new games, or revisit old ones, the model uses that data to give you updated recommendations. The second way the model adapts is by periodically re-training itself to take into account global changes, staying up-to-date with the latest releases and the gradually changing patterns of player behavior. This re-training process is an intensive operation that crunches billions of data points and can take a whole day to complete. We've been doing some behind-the-scenes cleanup work to make the re-training process smoother and more automated, which will enable us to use the technology in new contexts, like other Labs experiments or the Store itself.
The Automatic Show
New short shows
Top Releases for June, covering 21 titles from our monthly roundup in a tight 2 minutes 34 seconds.
The 3-Minute VR Show, which covers some of the latest VR titles across all genres.
Rapid! Fire! Horror! In the first two shows, each game clip is 8 seconds long. This show experiments with 3-second clips. Can you handle it?
We've heard your requests for more dynamic tag selection tools to help guide the Interactive Recommender's results, and we hope to build these soon. We will also continue to monitor and improve the Interactive Recommender's success connecting users with compelling content. The strong performance we're seeing so far may be due in part to the novelty of the feature, so we're continuing to monitor results and conduct additional tests to confirm our initial findings. Meanwhile, given your positive feedback, we're exploring ways to offer the Interactive Recommender's features in other parts of the Store.
As we're looking at next steps for each of our fledgling experiments, we are also embarking on a fourth, which we're excited to share with you soon.
Keep in touch
These experiments are guided in large part by the Steam community of players and game developers. We love to hear what you think of them in the Steam Labs community forum at https://steamcommunity.com/groups/SteamLabs/discussions/
Today we're pleased to announce that the New Steam Library open beta will start on Tuesday, September 17th – all players will be able to opt-in and try out the new features.
Untapped potential already in your library
The new Steam library was built with the belief that our libraries are valuable to us – for some customers, they contain more than fifteen years of games. From your absolute favorite AAA title that all your friends are playing, to that solo indie art project that only you seem to love, your Steam library represents your gaming history.
But, a good library shouldn't just be dusty shelves, it has to be a fun place to explore and find whatever it is that you're looking for. Whether you want to keep up to date about what's happening with your games, find a game to play with your friends, or explore what's happening in your game's community, your library should support you.
Today we want to introduce you to some of the biggest new library features and explain how they’re going help do just that.
A brand new way to look at things
The first thing you'll probably notice is that we're launching a gorgeous new landing page for your library. The new library home gives you quick access to game updates, recently played games, friends activity and your collections.
Stay connected with your games and friends
We're making it easier for you to stay on top of the changes happening to your games and who is playing what. One of things we know you love about Steam is being able to engage directly with your games as they evolve over time. The new library makes it simple to see not just if a game has been updated but, with the new events feature, what that update is and why you should boot it up and give it a shot.
We're also making it easy to see what your friends have been up to and which games they are currently playing. You can find out what games your friends have been playing right on the library home page, and see what games they are currently playing from your games list. With all this new information, you shouldn't miss out on the tantalizing water-cooler conversation about everyone's weekend replay of Portal 2.
Stay in-the-know about your games with Events
Odds are, you've got games in your library that had incredible updates or limited-time events and you never even knew. Well, those days are over. We wanted to strike a balance between an in-library event feature that let you know about all the great things happening with the games you already own without bombarding you with notifications.
Showcasing these updates is valuable to players and also developers. If you’re a dev, it hasn’t been easy to let someone know that you've just shipped a big update to your game, especially if they've moved on to something else. Now it is. Starting today, developers will have access to all new event creation tools that will feed directly into the new library (you can read more about the new event tools here).
Not every event needs to be a big update, though. The new event tool gives you the ability to connect with players and share other things like a developer live-stream or a community challenge, or even highlight interesting fan art.
Stay tuned for more information
We're taking the first step today by giving developers access to new editor tools for events and announcements, as well as upgrading the events and announcements pages for players.
While we’re putting the finishing touches on the new library you can follow the Steam blog for more updates and in-depth information about the new library before we open the public beta on September 17th.
Returning to our monthly series of looking at popular releases, July brought a variety of exciting products. With this list, we'll be looking at the top 20 products released in July, measured by revenue generated during the first two weeks after release.
Picking up where we left off last month, Early Access titles continue to be heavily represented. A total of nine games are either releasing into or launching out of Early Access. We're also seeing more debuts this month from developers releasing their very first games on Steam. Killsquad, Iratus: Lord of the Dead, LOVE³, Nowhere Prophet, CUSTOM ORDER MAID 3D2, Swords & Souls: Neverseen & Streets of Rogue are all Steam firsts from their respective development teams.
Speaking of developers, we were pretty excited to see how diverse their global representation was this month. The development teams responsible for these games are based out of 13 different countries spread across five continents (Argentina, Canada, United Kingdom, France, Germany, Hungary, Japan, Netherlands, Russia, South Africa, Spain, Sweden, and United States). Steam players are represented in every region imaginable, so it only makes sense that successful games are coming from all over the world too. We're all looking forward to a future top 20 featuring a game developed in Antarctica.
We have quite a bit of fun looking at these lists, while trying to find themes and features that the games have in common. About half of this month's top 20 games support external input devices, allowing players who have controllers to engage with games in new ways. Co-op experiences are also represented pretty heavily this month, with eight games fully supporting the ability to play together with your Steam friends (EARTH DEFENSE FORCE 5, Killsquad, Streets of Rogue, Wolfenstein: Youngblood, Warhammer 40,000: Inquisitor - Prophecy, Dead Frontier 2, New Frontier and The Blackout Club).
Top Releases
Here is the list of July's top new releases ordered by release date (we've added this list to a handy store page too):
Kubifaktorium - Mirko Seithe (Germany) Just Arrived into Early Access. Build, manage and grow a simulated colony, while exploring vast biomes, exploiting resources and crafting complex machinery and weapons. Released July 3rd.
Godhood - Abbey Games (Netherlands) Just Arrived into Early Access. Build your roster of followers, level up their abilities and then watch them fight in a unique new turn based auto-battler experience. Released July 10th.
Field of Glory: Empires - Ageod (France) Immerse yourself in grand strategy while exploring the intricate and living tapestry of nations and tribes, each with their own distinctive culture. Released July 11th.
EARTH DEFENSE FORCE 5 - SANDLOT (Japan) Become an EDF soldier, battle against endless hordes of immense enemies, and restore peace to the earth in the fifth installment of this arcade third-person shooter with full online co-op. Released July 11th.
Streets of Rogue - Matt Dabrowski (United States) out of Early Access - Fight, sneak, and hack your way through randomly generated cities in this completely insane rogue-lite meets immersive sim. Released July 12th.
Killsquad - Novarama (Spain) Just arrived into Early Access - A Sci-fi themed ARPG experience, where you can choose your quests, level up to unlock skills and wreak havoc with a host of unique weapons. Released July 16th.
Gloomhaven - Flaming Fowl Studios (United Kingdom) Just arrived into Early Access - This is the digital adaptation of the acclaimed board game of the same name, mixing Tactical-RPG and dungeon-crawling with plenty of replay value. Released July 17th.
GORN - Free Lives (South Africa) Coming out of Early Access - From the developers of Broforce and Genital Jousting comes GORN - a ludicrously violent VR gladiator simulator. Released July 18th.
Nowhere Prophet - Sharkbomb Studios (Germany) From strategic tactical combat to careful deckbuilding - embark on a rogue-lite pilgrimage through a strange, broken world. Released July 19th.
Swords & Souls: Neverseen - SoulGame Studio (France) A unique RPG where leveling up takes skill. Create, train and upgrade your character as you battle across the lands to foil an evil witch's plans. Released July 22nd.
DATE A LIVE: Rio Reincarnation - Idea Factory, Compile Heart & Sting Entertainment (Japan) Show the Spirits the power of love and save the world in this romantic visual novel from Idea Factory. Released July 23rd.
Automachef - Hermes Interactive (Argentina) Design and build automated kitchens of the future as you solve puzzles, manage resources and watch your genius come to life. Released July 23rd.
Iratus: Lord of the Dead - Unfrozen (Russia) Just arrived into Early Access - A turn-based tactical roguelike RPG set in a dark fantasy universe. Lead an army of undead on a quest to reach the surface world and bring death to the mortal realms. Released July 24th.
LOVE³ -Love Cube- - NEKO WORK H (Japan) A fully voiced and animated Live2D visual adventure with an original soundtrack and brand new art by the popular IshiKei. Released July 25th.
Wolfenstein: Youngblood - Machine Games (Sweden) and Arkane Studios (France & United States) Join a friend or play alone to experience Wolfenstein with modern online co-op, an open-ended experience and an original synthwave soundtrack. Released July 25th.
The Blackout Club - Question (United States) Play alone or with friends in this first-person psychological horror adventure, where you play as teenage friends investigating a monstrous small-town secret. Released July 29th.
Oxygen Not Included - Klei Entertainment (Canada) Coming out of Early Access - Master science, overcome strange new lifeforms and harness incredible space tech in this space-colony simulation survival hit. Released July 30th.
Warhammer 40,000: Inquisitor - Prophecy - NeocoreGames (Hungary) Take on the role of Inquisitor and embark on a massive campaign in this grim and atmospheric ARPG set in the Warhammer universe. Released July 30th.
Kindergarten 2 - Con Man Games and SmashGames (United States) The long awaited sequel takes you back to Kindergarten for all new adventures with new characters and familiar murderous humor. Released July 30th.
CUSTOM ORDER MAID 3D2 It's a Night Magic - KISS (Japan) Customize and manage all aspects of the luxurious Empire Club bar and hotel, including the three resident maids. Released July 31st.
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Top Free Releases
The above list uses revenue as a measure of popularity, but as we mentioned last month, this doesn't really capture the popularity of free games that players may be enjoying. So again this month, we’re adding a list of the top five free games released in July, measured (and ranked here) by peak player count within the first two weeks following release.
New Frontier - Free Reign Entertainment (United States) A PVP online survival game set an alternate reality version of the Wild West. Build, fight and forge alliances to win The West. Released July 25th.
Dead Frontier 2 - Creaky Corpse Ltd (United Kingdom) Online survival horror at its darkest. Level up your character and scavenge for scarce resources, trade with other survivors in a realistic economy and battle it out in gripping PVP combat. Released July 15th.
Supremacy 1914 - Bytro Labs GmbH (Germany) Choose your superpower during World War I and wage war with up to 500 other opponents in this real-time grand strategy epic. Released July 16th.
The Orville Interactive Fan Experience - Messy Desk Interactive (United Kingdom) Step aboard the USS Orville (ECV-197), the Planetary Union's finest mid-level exploratory class cruiser. Every room on every deck is recreated with painstaking accuracy. Released July 23rd.
RED HOT VENGEANCE - Bros Before Giraffes (United States) A twin-stick shooter featuring a unique art style, challenging level designs and a suite of weapons. A complete map editor is built-in for players who want to create even more challenges. Released July 11th.
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Five Years Ago
Last month we took a look at the top 5 releases from one year ago. We thought it would be exciting to go even further back, so this month we're taking a look at the top 5 releases of July, 2014 (ordered by release date).
We're continuing our new monthly series with a look at the top games released on Steam during the month of June. As with last month's post, this list looks at all games released during the month and grabs the top 20 by revenue earned in the first two weeks following release.
About half of this month’s top releases come from teams releasing their very first game on Steam. Some of these teams have been making games for a while on consoles or for mobile markets, while others are brand-new teams working together for the first time. Barotrauma, Cooking Sim, SpaceEngine, Bloodstained, MyFriendPedro, Super Neptunia, Hardcore Mecha, Nine Trials, Wasteland Survival, Ring of Elysium, and Lords Mobile are all Steam firsts from these developers.
Meanwhile, a total of seven of the top releases either entered or left Early Access in the month of June, continuing to demonstrate a strong interest in a live model of development that incorporates player feedback.
A number of these games found success with niche audience groups, so it’s great to see that those groups are big enough and engaged enough to drive these games into the top 20. Pro Cycling Manager 2019 is a game that traditionally sells to players in Western Europe (France in particular), and is likely propelled by the interest in the Tour De France kicking off just days after release of the game. Meanwhile, F1 Racing’s success would indicate a lot of players are following the latest season of F1 racing and probably have racing wheels hooked up to their PCs. We’re also pleased to see an educational exploration game like SpaceEngine make the list because we all love space, right?
Top Releases
Here is this month's list of top new releases ordered by release date (we've put this list on a handy store page too):
Trover Saves the Universe - 3D platformer action in a bizarre comedy universe from the co-creator of Rick and Morty. Released June 4th.
Barotrauma - Just arrived into Early Access - 2D survival on a submarine plunging deep below the surface of a frozen ocean. Released June 5th.
Hell Let Loose - Just arrived into Early Access - WWII FPS with 100 player battles and a strategic meta game including a dynamically shifting front line and resource management. Released June 6th.
Cooking Simulator - Play in sandbox mode or take on a career in this cooking simulator with full physics and realistic ingredients. Released June 6th.
OCTOPATH TRAVELER - Eight unique and unforgettable story paths and characters with retro JRPG style and a fully developed 3D world. Released June 7th.
コイカツ / Koikatsu Party - Endless customization options and roleplaying with variety of anime companions. Note: This game is marked as 'adult only' and requires you to be signed in to view. Released June 10th.
SpaceEngine - Just arrived into Early Access - A fully science-based & photorealistic 3D planetarium that models the entire known universe, with procedural generation of the unknown. Released June 11th.
They Are Billions - Coming out of Early Access - Build and survive in this steampunk strategy game set on a post-apocalyptic planet under siege. Released June 18th.
Police Simulator: Patrol Duty - From routine traffic stops to fugitive pursuits - simulate the life of a US police officer in this open world crime simulator. Released June 18th.
Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night - An exploration-focused, side-scrolling action RPG by Koji Igarashi of Castlevania fame. Released June 18th.
AMID EVIL - A retro fast-paced FPS from the producers of Dusk and creators of Return of the Triad. Released June 20th.
Steel Division 2 - Coming out of Early Access - A historically-accurate strategy game set on the Eastern Front of WWII - Strategic campaigns, real-time battles and a unique deck building system. Released June 20th.
My Friend Pedro - A violent ballet about friendship, imagination, and one man’s struggle to obliterate anyone in his path at the behest of a sentient banana. Released June 20th.
Muse Dash - Dance and parkour your way through to 30 original songs in this fast paced rhythm game with full Japanese voiceover. Released June 20th.
Super Neptunia RPG - A JRPG adventure with a refreshing 2D twist on the classic Neptunia series. Released June 20th.
Ring of Elysium - Coming out of Early Access - A free-to-play game with a unique take on battle royales set in an apocalyptic world with natural disasters, player abilities and grappling hooks. Released June 24th.
HARDCORE MECHA - Start a campaign or test your multiplayer skills in this 2D platformer with intense mecha combat. Released June 26th.
F1 2019 - The official game of F1 racing, featuring all the teams, drivers and circuits from the 2019 and 2018 seasons. Released June 27th.
Pro Cycling Manager 2019 - Manage your own team of professional cyclists and claim victory in over 200 races around the world. Released June 27th.
九劫曲:诅咒之地 NINE TRIALS - Just arrived into Early Access - Play as an Immortal in this refreshed battle royale experience with melee combat and RPG elements. Released June 28th.
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Top Free Releases
The above list is generated by looking at revenue as one measure of popularity. But we know that this measure doesn’t fully capture the popularity of free games that many players may be enjoying but that don’t generate revenue the same way as the kinds of traditional paid games listed above. So this month, we’re also adding a list of the top five free games released in June, measured (and ranked here) by peak player count within the first two weeks following release.
This month, Ring of Elysium makes both lists by establishing a solid player base during Early Access and throughout launch.
Dota Underlords - Hire a crew and destroy your rivals in this new strategy battler set in the world of Dota. Released June 20th.
Ring of Elysium - Coming out of Early Access - A unique take on battle royales set in an apocalyptic world with natural disasters, player abilities and grappling hooks. Released June 24th.
Black Squad - Coming out of Early Access - Skill and strategy reign supreme in this military based FPS with a variety of game modes and unlockable weapons. Released June 26th.
Lords Mobile - Clash with 280 million other players on both mobile and Steam in a world of real-time strategy and chaos. Released June 3rd.
Wasteland Survival - Develop your own base and craft specialized supplies in this isometric post-apocalyptic survival game. Released June 3rd.