Dec 17, 2019

Steam News - AndrewL

As we near the end of 2019, we're continuing our look at popular monthly releases on Steam. With this post, we'll be looking back at the top 20 products released in November, measured by revenue generated during the first two weeks following release. We've also gathered the top 5 free-to-play releases, measured by peak concurrent player count in the two weeks following release.

With each month's list, we often highlight similarities between some of the month's top products. But this month, we noticed an exciting contrast between established franchises from well-known developers and fresh entries from newly created teams. Seeing franchises like Age of Empires, Sniper Ghost Warrior and Football Manager alongside newcomers like FrenzyRetribution, Ratropolis, and Lost Ember is really a testament to the variety of tastes present in the Steam community. Players certainly enjoy familiar content, but there is always room for unexpected surprises.

Another theme that stands out this month is the significant representation of prominent fan-favorite universes. These are names that need no introduction, as they are popular all over the world, not only in games - Gundam, Game of Thrones, Terminator, Warhammer and Star Wars. The success of these titles shows just how much excitement can be generated by huge universes that span across artistic mediums. Whether its comics, music, film or TV, we are definitely looking forward to seeing more universes make their way to games. Who knows, the franchise from your favorite book or movie just might end up on a future top release list.

Finally, we'd like to congratulate the teams that are releasing their very first product on Steam. Some of these teams have been making games for a while on other platforms, while some are recent college grads making their first commercial product. We're happy to welcome these 10 development teams that are new to Steam: Blueside, FrenzyZoneGameworkshop, YOUZU (SINGAPORE) PTE. LTD., Mobile Technologies LLC, ALLM Co., Ltd., 2x2 Games, UMEO Studios, Respawn Entertainment, Cassel Games and Mooneye Studios.

November's Top Releases

Here is the full list of November's top releases ordered by release date (we've organized this list on a handy sale page too):

Ratropolis - Cassel Games

Planet Zoo - Frontier Developments

Pistol Whip - Cloudhead Games

ROMANCING SAGA 3™ - Square Enix & ArtePiazza

Kritika:REBOOT - ALLM Co., Ltd.

Unity of Command II - 2x2 Games & Croteam

The Legend of Bum-Bo - Edmund McMillen, James Interactive & Ridiculon

Age of Empires II: Definitive Edition - Forgotten Empires & Tantalus Media

Command: Modern Operations - Warfare Sims

Terminator: Resistance - Teyon

STAR WARS Jedi: Fallen Order™ - Respawn Entertainment

Kingdom Under Fire 2 - Blueside

Football Manager 2020 - Sports Interactive

Automation Empire - DOG HOGGLER

BlazBlue Cross Tag Battle - Arc System Works

This Land Is My Land - Game-Labs

Farmer's Dynasty - Toplitz Productions & UMEO Studios

Lost Ember - Mooneye Studios

Sniper Ghost Warrior Contracts - CI Games

SD GUNDAM G GENERATION CROSS RAYS - TOM CREATE - 株式会社トムクリエイト

--

November's Top Free Releases

Kritika:REBOOT - ALLM Co., Ltd.

Stay Out - Mobile Technologies LLC

Game of Thrones Winter is Coming - YOUZU (SINGAPORE) PTE. LTD.

Warhammer: Chaos and Conquest - Hunted Cow Studios

罪業狂襲FrenzyRetribution - FrenzyZoneGameworkshop

--

If you're curious about previous months, here are more Top Release links:

One more little reminder - The Steam Winter Sale begins on Thursday the 19th.

Happy Holidays Everyone!

Dec 16, 2019

Steam Client Update Released

Client Update - Valve

A new Steam client has been released and will be automatically downloaded.

The update has been re-released on December 16th to hotfix a CPU usage problem with the Linux client.

General

Fix URL bar displaying on HTTPS pages when ‘Display Steam URL’ setting is disabled. Steam URL bar will now respect the setting unless on a page with a security issue in which case it will always show to display the error.

Fix steamwebhelper crash causes when requests are unexpectedly canceled.

Library

Allow creating shelves for shared libraries.

Disable screenshot slideshow in app hovers if Low Bandwidth or Low Performance mode is enabled.

Fix some cases where mismatched header images were cached for some games.

Fix duplicated game activity items from sometimes appearing.

Allow Family Sharing of tools.

Fix new categories created in small mode or Big Picture mode not being properly saved when switching to normal mode.

Fix recently played but disallowed by Family View games not appearing in the Recent Games shelf (or the MRU jump list) when Family View is enabled at startup.

Fix rendering of steam award images in news updates.

Remote Play Together

Hosting on Windows and Linux automatically starts a Steam Voice chat with invited players when available. Invited Friends can optionally join and accept the voice chat in a single click.

Players in the session are visible to all players for adjusting Steam Voice Chat mic volumes.

All players’ status is now updated to show that they are playing the game together in the Friends List.

Fixed host not being able to adjust the last player's input settings in some cases.

More players fit in the vertical scrolling area.

When a Remote Play Together session is already running, trying to invite a different friend to a different game allows the host to easily end the existing stream.

Game volume and fullscreen/windowed preferences are remembered across sessions for the client.

Family Sharing can now be used in conjunction with Remote Play Together.

Linux

Update steam runtime and container runtime (0.20191119.3): improved graphics drivers diagnostics.

Implement a workaround for filesystems with failing 32 bit statfs64 calls (free disk space checks).

steam runtime 0.20191210.1: gnutls update to support Proton, further improvements to steam-runtime-system-info.

Dec 16, 2019

Team Fortress 2 Update Released

Team Fortress 2 - Valve

An update to Team Fortress 2 has been released. The update will be applied automatically when you restart Team Fortress 2. The major changes include:

Happy Smissmas 2019!

All players who play TF2 during the event will receive a Stuffed Stocking as a gift! Stockings contain goodies for good little Mercenaries.
- Event runs through January 7th, 2020
Added the Winter 2019 Cosmetic Case
- Contains 18 new community-contributed items
- The Festivizer can be found as a bonus drop when opening the case
Added the Winter 2019 War Paint Case
- Contains 10 new community-created War Paints that make-up the Winter 2019 Collection
- Has a chance to give a taunt Unusualifier as a bonus item
Added 17 new community-created Unusual effects
- 11 new effects for Unusual hats
- 6 new effects for Unusual taunts
Mann Co. Store winter sale!

General

Updated several maps to fix localization issues
Updated/Added some tournament medals
Updated the localization files