We're happy to announce our Top Releases of August 2021



As with previous Top Release lists, we look at every game released during the month and highlight the Top 20 based on their first two weeks of revenue. We also highlight the top 5 free-to-play games, ranked by the number of unique players they acquired after launch.

The Top Releases of August 2021

Nearly half of August's Top Releases participated in a previous Steam Next Fest. For those unfamiliar, Steam Next Fest is a multi-day celebration of upcoming games, where anyone can explore and play hundreds of free game demos, watch developer livestreams, and chat with the teams about their process. Players who haven't yet experienced one should not fret, as Next Fest October is right around the corner. We're pretty sure a few future Top Releases will make their debuts, so mark your calendar and see if you can predict which games will make the cut.

Standalone releases draw much deserved attention on our monthly Top Release lists, but a new expansion or DLC release can add just as much excitement to a game from the past. So for this month, we've included a tab for the Top 5 DLC releases of August, based on revenue they generated after launch. Long-time fans of the Age of the Empires franchise were more than excited to get their hands on two brand-new DLC releases this month. It's quite a refreshing surprise when you consider that the series first launched nearly 25 years ago, receiving remasters and definitive editions along the way, and is now creating brand new content for fans of the series. 

August's list also included the successful new multiplayer release, NARAKA: BLADEPOINT. Players might remember participating in the game's official Steam Playtest earlier this year - one of the first games to take full advantage of new feature. Steam Playtest provides a number of tools that allow devs to gather feedback, test features and server load, as well as generate excitement throughout the community. As noted by the 24 Entertainment team here, the participating Steam players helped ensure that the game could be in Top Release state when it was finally ready to hit the public. We expect more developers will be taking advantage of this feature in the coming months, so for players who enjoy getting a sneak preview of upcoming blockbusters, keep your eye out for Steam Playtests. 

We'd also like to congratulate all the development teams who are releasing their first Steam game this month. Creating a Top Release is no easy task, and doing so with a first-time Steam release is icing on the cake. Welcome and congrats to these teams on their Steam debuts.

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

• February 2021
  
• March 2021
  
• April 2021
  
• May 2021
  
• June 2021
  
• July 2021

The downloads page in the Steam client has been replaced with a new implementation and has been visually redesigned for clarity and ease of use.

• When a game/update is actively downloading it will now display the total progression completed for the download or update. Previously the progress bar would only display the downloading content progress but not the disk allocation process which would make an update to appear completed when it was not.
  
• Any partially completed downloads/updates in queue now will show a faded progress bar and percent completed next to it to clearly display its current state.
  
• A new (i) icon next to the game's title will reveal a tooltip displaying the types of content that is included in that update. Types consist of: Game Content, Downloadable Content, Workshop Content, and Shader Pre-caching. This icon only appears if the update is not solely game content.
  
• The download queue is now fully reorderable using drag and drop.
  
• The context menu for the actively downloading item now includes an option to launch the game when the download is complete and an option to suspend download throttling (if enabled) for the duration of that download.
  
• The "View News" button is now a "Patch Notes" link that will open an overlay to the most recent relevant patch notes for the game. This will only display for games that have entered patch notes into the new event system. The patch notes link will only show up on updates, not fresh installs. For workshop updates, a page of subscribed items ordered by update date can be accessed by selecting "View Updated Items" from the context menu.

The storage management section in the Steam client has been replaced with a new implementation.

• Updated Steam library folder UI for easy content management across multiple drives
  
• Allow mounting library folders on read-only drives
  
• Allow removing empty library folders on fixed drives

Library

• Updated Steam library folders dialog to better manage various game content installed on your drives
  
• Game counts in various places in the UI will no longer include Tools unless the Tools filter is selected in the left column.
  
• The Recent Friend Activity shelf has been removed.
  
• Fixed some errors for users whose account name was the maximum length.
  
• Fixed duplicate events appearing in the app detail activity feed
  
• Added "Patch notes" and "View subscribed items" to context menu on downloads page for items for which those options are relevant
  
• Removed demo banner on hero image for some things that are not demos
  
• Fixed a library crash when right clicking on certain kinds of multiple selections in the game list
  
• Streamline new library folder creation during game install
  
• When starting a tool (like SteamVR), do not automatically navigate to its details page
  
• Change display of bits per second from "b/s" to "bps"

Friends List

• Fixed issue with the Friends List not loading correctly
  
• Fixed group chat notifications dialog being scaled down within the window

General

• Replaced taskbar notification area icon for Windows
  
• Fixed “Uninstall Game” dialog blocking UI in case app is still downloading
  
• Fixed crash when attempting to delete some screenshots from the Steam Cloud
  
• Improved support for OpenXR applications.

Remote Play Together

• Fixed remote player's controllers not being detected or not getting input if they connect while the Steam overlay is up
  
• Fixed crash when closing Steam after using streaming or remote play together
  
• Fixed being unable to stream a game if it needs updates
  
• Fix loading / saving settings for users with non-ASCII characters in their name

Steam Cloud

• Fixed a sync issue due to one client running without a connection to Steam when files are changed from another client

Steam Input

• Further reduced CPU usage of Steam Input, especially in Steam Input API games
  
• Added support for the current set of PowerA Xbox Series X controllers
  
• Fixed handling Xbox Series X controllers when Xbox Extended Feature Support is enabled

macOS

• Fixed Steam Overlay displaying at wrong resolution in some games
  
• Fixed incorrect identification of current OS version as "Catalina" in Steam Library compatibility label when running macOS 11

Linux

• Fixed regression causing too many open file handles error during downloads of some games
  
• Library pinning process is significantly faster at startup after runtime updates
  
• Restore compatibility with NixOS (steam-runtime#431)
  
• Make /usr/share/nvidia available to the container if using the NVIDIA proprietary driver, so that app-specific profiles can be applied (steam-runtime-tools#73)
  
• Silence most LD_PRELOAD warnings
  
• SDL 2.0.16 now available in sdk and runtime
  
• Fix web views incompatibility with distro host freetype (steam-for-linux#7935)

SteamVR

• Added detection of HTC Vive Pro 2 and a prompt to install the Vive Pro 2 Driver
  
• Fixed bug that prevented Steam from counting some USB-connected headsets when gathering data for the hardware survey. In general, the sampling of SteamVR sessions should have caught most of these cases, but this could have resulted in some undercounting.
  
• Fixed game hitching that happens to some users when USB devices are inserted or removed