Check out Steam Next Fest

Steam Next Fest is back! The October Edition is officially upon us, with a full week celebrating upcoming games. Play What's Next from first-time and veteran developers alike; and wishlist your favorites to be notified when they officially launch on Steam!

Today through October 10th at 10am PDT (UTC-7), we're showcasing hundreds of demos for the newest upcoming games across every genre from teams all over the world! You'll have the opportunity to try these unreleased games for free throughout Next Fest—no expo halls, no queues.

New for this edition of Next Fest: a Steam badge that levels up as you explore games in the newly revamped Discovery Queue. If you're not yet familiar with the new Discovery Queue, you can learn more about it here.

Day 1 includes our own live show (starting at 11am PDT) to kick off a full week of developer livestreams and chats! Check out the schedule on the front page to find more to enjoy.

With so many amazing games to choose from, it can be hard to know where to start. We've got your back, with lots of easy ways to explore Next Fest!

• Browse by category, or a game’s primary tags, to find demos in your favorite genre; you can even search by sub-genres or specific features.
  
• Check out the Event Schedule for developer-hosted livestreams and chats to see who you might like to connect with.

Check out Steam Next Fest

#SteamNextFest

Returning to our monthly series, we're excited to announce Steam's Top Releases for the month of August. As always, we look at every game released during the month, highlighting the Top 20 games and Top 5 DLC releases 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 2022

Last week we launched a completely overhauled Steam Charts overview page, which will now host these Monthly Top Release lists. The Charts page also includes a ton of other interesting information, including player stats, real-time top sellers, historical charts, and more. You can read all about it here.

Summer is the perfect venue for a blockbuster, and August fit the bill with a number of headliners rising to the Top Release marquee. As one of the most beloved superheroes of the past 60 years, expectations were massive for the PC debut of Marvel’s Spider-Man Remastered. Insomniac Games and Nixxes Software delivered in a big way, letting players take full advantage of modern hardware, all while raising the bar for what Steam players can expect from an experience built for the PC. On top of that, it's great on the Steam Deck! August also included the massively-multiplayer Steam debut of Guild Wars 2. Its arrival on Steam coincides with recent in-game festivities and player celebration of a 10 year journey with this award-winning MMO classic.

Creating a Top Release is no laughing matter for developers, with plenty of hard work, careful planning, and creative spark going into each and every game that makes it to the top. While creating one of these is no joke, August's Top Releases brought plenty of laughs to Steam libraries. For Cult of the Lamb and Destroy All Humans! 2 - Reprobed, players are encouraged to push the boundaries of dark humor as they explore familiar archetypes with morbidly unique twists. For a more light-hearted sense of humor, players can check out PlateUp! and Two Point Campus, each with a generous helping of strategy and comic relief. Finally, we can't talk comedy without mentioning that Dead by Daylight now boasts a laugh-out-loud spinoff that needs no explanation - Hooked on You: A Dead by Daylight Dating Sim™.   

--

If you're curious about previous months, head over to the brand-new Steam Charts overview page.

Note: This update was re-released on September 28 to update and fix localization entries.

Games to Play Together

• You can now add Friends as a filter under Advanced Filtering in your Library. It will show games you have in common.
  
• Right-click on any user in Chat or your Friends List to Find Games to Play Together and it will auto-populate your filter while also applying the Multiplayer tag.
  
• Right-click a Group Chat header to do the same with smaller group chats or voice channels (8 members or less)

General

• In-game purchases on Mac and Linux will now use the updated purchase approval dialog
  
• Reduced network usage at startup
  
• Fixed issue causing games which are currently updating to not change to playable when going into Offline Mode unless Steam is restarted
  
• Fixed link to downloads page not appearing at client startup if no downloads are ongoing
  
• Fixed input of characters using AltGr on Windows in the Steam Login dialog and Steam Chat and web browsers in the Steam Overlay
  
• Fixed community broadcast pop-out and closing of the mini-player view
  
• Fixed client update dialog sometimes failing to display update notes
  
• Updated embedded Chromium build in Steam to 85.0.4183.121

Remote Play

• Greatly improved capture performance in Vulkan games
  
• Fixed Remote Play launch hanging when the remote game had a cloud sync pending
  
• Fixed black screen when streaming to a Linux computer

Steam Input

• Steam no longer ignores PS4 controllers when DS4Windows is running, allowing DS4Windows to remap them normally
  
• Added support for the Hori Fighting Stick α
  
• Added support for Kinvoca Joy-Cons controllers
  
• Default the names of generic gamepads to the device name reported over USB
  
• Fixed not being able to press the mic button on PS5 controllers
  
• Fixed displaying the name of Nintendo Online NES controllers
  
• Fix an issue where Switch controllers could show up w/ a duplicate device
  
• Fixed issues w/ Alt-Tabbing via Guide Button Chords
  
• Added experimental support for PS3 controllers on macOS
  
• Bring various bug fixes from the Steam Deck beta branch to fix those while streaming from the Desktop client
  
• FlickStick Upgrade (inherited from CS:GO)
  
  • New angle snapping options for initial Flick-Turns (None, 180, 90, 60, 45, Forward Deadzone Angle).
    
  • Tunable Forward Deadzone Angle.
    
  • Rapid consecutive Flick-Turns will be fully respected (the previous Flick-Turn was interrupted in the last version)
    
  • Flick-Turn Duration becomes a tunable smoothing factor (low pass filter), instead of a fixed duration. The time to complete a turn is relative to the size of the angle being turned.
    
  • Flick-Turn is smoothed based on how far the stick is thrown past the inner deadzone, for a less "surprising" Flick-Turn threshold.
    
  • Sensitivity Setting becomes "Pixels Per Revolution" (This setting was previously pixels per half revolution).
    
  • Sweep rotation sensitivity and smoothing can be tuned independent of Flick-Turn.
    
  • More gradual rotation when stick is partially-thrown
    

Steam Overlay

• Fixed web browser crash when loading certain blank URL's

macOS

• Fixed incorrect placement of "Restore Window" button when client window is maximized

Linux

• Fix entering characters in Steam Overlay that use an AltGr key sequence

Today we've launched a new section of Steam dedicated to ranking the most popular games on Steam. This new section includes real-time charts for top selling and most played games, as well as weekly top sellers and monthly top new releases.

Check out the new charts here: https://store.steampowered.com/charts/

This new section replaces the old 'stats' page on Steam and provides a better overview for what is hot on Steam right now. The new top-selling lists rank games based on total revenue, including all sources such as DLC and in-game transactions so we can all get a more complete picture of which games players are excited about getting into and continuing to play. This new method of calculating revenue is also being deployed across various top lists throughout the Steam store, including the Top Sellers tab on Steam's homepage, genre and tag pages.

Here is a closer look at what's new:



The new Steam Charts overview page provides a quick summary of which games are selling well, being played the most, and how many users are online. Plus, links to quickly jump to the most recent weekly and monthly charts.

And you can continue to find links here to the Steam Hardware Survey, Download Stats, and Customer Support Stats.



We've had real-time Top Sellers sections on various pages across Steam for well over a decade, even broken out into top lists for individual tags, genres, and themes. You can still find those by visiting any tag or genre page, or simply going to the search page on Steam and sorting by top sellers. Today's update builds on that history with a few notable improvements in the Steam Charts view:

• Number of weeks on chart - We've added indication of how many weeks a game has been on the top sellers chart.
  
• Weekly change in rank - We've added indication of how many positions a game has changed in rank, if any, compared with the previous week.
  
• Region switcher - For a set of most popular countries on Steam, we generate country-specific top sellers lists as a default so the lists can pick up on regional differences in customer interests. By default, we'll show you charts for your own country if we have them, but you can always switch to the global view or to another country's view if you are curious.
  
• Total revenue - This list charts how well games are selling right now, including all editions (standard, deluxe, etc) of the game as well as DLC and in-game transactions. If an individual DLC is selling well enough on it's own to make the chart, we'll show the DLC entry as well so you can see when exciting new game expansions are making a splash.

Check out the real-time top sellers chart: https://store.steampowered.com/charts/topselling/global



The Most Played list charts the top 100 games based on the number of players in the game right now, along with an indication of the recent peak in player count for each of those top games. You can also switch to a view sorted by daily players which ranks the games based on the total number of unique players over the past 24 hours.

Check out the real-time most played chart: https://store.steampowered.com/charts/mostplayed



The new weekly charts show the top 100 best-selling games based on revenue earned starting and ending each week on Monday at 10am Pacific. These lists show how many weeks in a row each game has been on the weekly charts and any change in rank from the previous week.

You can easily view previous weeks' charts to see popular games you may have missed. In fact, if you keep going through previous weeks, you can step all the way back to 2005 when there was a grand total of three games available for sale on Steam. Or the week of March 27 when PUBG launched straight to the top of the charts.

What other historical moments in PC gaming can you find immortalized in these weekly charts?


For over a year now, we've been compiling a list for each months' top new releases. These monthly charts continue within a new home alongside our other charts, making it easier to look back at previous months' lists.

Check July's Top New Releases: https://store.steampowered.com/charts/topnewreleases/top_july_2022



Q. Why include Free to Play games on these charts?
A. Over time we've seen games utilize a wide variety of approaches to pricing. Traditionally our top sellers charts have only included revenue from premium game purchases, but that was obscuring the hugely popular free or inexpensive games in which players purchase season passes, huge expansions, or other forms of new content. This format also lets us combine multiple editions of the same game so as to avoid duplication on the charts.

Q. What if a game is not available on Steam anymore?
A. If a game has been retired and is no longer available for purchase, it will still be listed on historical weekly and monthly charts for when it was top selling game. The charts will also display items not available in your country, or filtered out by your preferences, but in a condensed form.

Grab your weapons and prepare to fight! Bash Bash is a celebration (a “bash”, if you will) of games that fight (or “bash”, if you will). And you WILL!

But let's be honest, narrowing down "games that fight" is a pretty tall order for a broad category. Even when we started the conversations internally about which kinds of games best fit this event, we got into a few... fights (nothing exciting, mostly passive-aggressive email threads). You can see the outcome of said email thread by watching the video portion of this blog post above. But if seeing two idiots in costume attempting to explain a genre doesn't appeal to you, read on for the (slightly) more civilized written version.

Let's explore all the different ways people talk about games that fight by sharing a behind-the-scenes peek at how we looked at these games in the context of Bash Bash, while acknowledging this is one of those kinds of debates for which there is no wrong answer.

Bash Bash At-a-Glance

In Bash Bash, you'll find all kinds of games that feature combat fighting, typically involving melee-type weapons (think: swords, blades, etc.). Those aren't necessarily the ONLY weapons, as you'll often find games with other forms of fighting (like shooting) as a secondary part of the game.

Games you'll find in Bash Bash based on the above definition include:

• Hack-and-slash
  
• Spectacle fighters
  
• Character action games
  
• Musou

Let's start with hack-and-slash, which is a subgenre of beat-em-ups. Hack-and-slashers are action games that emphasize combat with melee weapons.

We're going to stop here for a sec because we sense a few of you may have read that sentence and thought, "a-HA! Beat-em-ups are Bash Bash worthy, so where are they?"

You aren't wrong, we promise! But beat-em-ups is an even wider genre that includes hand-to-hand combat and we wanted to focus this festival on being a bit more weapons-based. That's why you'll find hack-and-slash along with some hack-and-slash subgenres listed above.

Speaking of which, let's head back to the bulleted list: spectacle fighters. By these, we mean third-person games where the fighting favors a more stylistic, visually-impressive style over a realistic feel.

Character action games are also a subgenre of hack-and-slashers, with more of a focus on the story and journey of the character in the context of the fighting.

Finally, Musou games. Musou refers to games where you battle a lot of enemies. Like... a LOT, and from all angles, too. The history with the name lies in the games by Japanese developer Omega Force, which created many series of such games, typically with 'Warrior' somewhere in the title. Though that's the origin, Musou has since become a more expansive term to be its own subgenre of hack-and-slash.

Some of the features frequently found in games featured in Bash Bash include:

• RPG elements
  
• Third-person gameplay
  
• Fast-paced combat
  
• Tracked combat combos, or a visual representation of damage
  
• Score/ranking system
  
• Character moveset/weapons customization

Bottom line:
From now until September 26th at 10am PDT, you'll find discounts and demos on current and upcoming games as described above, and we hope you have as much fun exploring them as we did putting it together! However, if you disagree with our definition of games that Bash, definitely feel free to angrily tweet at us let us know, as we're always looking for fun and creative ways to feature all kinds of genres!

Check it out now: https://store.steampowered.com/category/hack_and_slash/

Today's Steam update brings big updates to the various tag, genre, category, and theme browsing pages across the Steam store. Previously released as a Steam Labs experiment, these new store hubs have been tested and iterated upon with player feedback over the past few months. In fact, you've probably already seen these new hubs in action, as we've made use of them during the Summer Sale or various official themed sales.

As the catalog of titles available on Steam continues to grow, we're working to make it easier for you to find your next favorite game. This update improving the ways you can browse genres, tags, or themes, allowing you to dive deep into each area and narrow down to exactly what you're looking for.

Here's a look at what's new:

These new pages now make it easy to explore all kinds of different niches within Steam. Whether you are looking for a general category like "Multiplayer", a theme like "Space" or a very specific tag like "Action Roguelike", these new hubs let you explore deep into that category. For many categories, we've hand-built an organization to surface the relevant sub-categories within. For example, the RPG store hub is organized into Action RPGs, Adventure RPGs, JRPGs, and more, so you can drill down to exactly the kind of game you are looking for.



The contents of each hub is personalized based on your play history, network of friends, followed developers, and what you have on your wishlist.

The carousel at the top of the page will show you games recommended for you, along with helpful metadata about why that game might be relevant for you.



Our broadest hubs offer tabs to quickly drill down by logical themes and sub-genres. Each one is hand-built to showcase the most logical sub-categories for each hub. For example, you can find your way to just the Open World RPGs and Controller-Friendly Casual Games. Or some hubs are broken down by subgenre, as on this Real-time tab of our Strategy hub and this Arcade section of the Sports & Racing hub.

Each hub will recommend games based on what you've been playing and the developers you follow on Steam. Of course if you are looking at a category of games that you've never played before, Steam may not be able to generate many useful recommendations for you and will hide those sections.



These hubs each contain a powerful list view that lets you use the filter controls to narrow down to exactly the segment of games you are looking for. We call this feature 'Faceted Browsing' and it also began life as a Steam Labs experiment.



Every section of the Steam store is now lit up with current events from related titles. Catch a seasonal event, big update, or other interesting news directly from the developers.



The new hubs end with a dedicated section showcasing upcoming releases. Pre-purchase or wishlist anticipated titles to be notified as soon as they're released.


Click on an individual tag from any game's store page and you'll find the hub for that tag. You can also easily discover the most popular hubs, or the hubs recommended for you right from the Steam store homepage.

We've also added a new way to jump right into one of your favorite categories right from this colorful carousel on the Steam homepage. This section will recommend categories based on the games you've recently been playing so you can explore more similar games. Or you can always scroll to find some other categories that you maybe haven't played in a while.



You can access the most popular destinations by hitting the "Categories" drop-down at the top of the Steam store.



Launched in July 2019, Steam Labs is a place where experimental new features can be introduced early in development, tested, and developed in conjunction with the community. For more information, please visit https://store.steampowered.com/labs/