Valve has printed its annual Best of Steam checklist for 2024, rating the 12 months’s prime video games in varied classes. The top-sellers checklist for 2024 bears loads of similarity to that one 2023, with one notable exception: Starfield is nowhere to be seen.
Valve would not launch gross sales information for particular person video games, so we won’t say how a lot any explicit title on the checklist pulled in: Instead, they’re randomly sorted in “buckets”—platinum, gold, silver, and bronze—indicating their relative success. Given the variety of video games launched each month on Steam, even a bronze-tier rating represents a big success.
Five of the 12 video games within the platinum class—PUBG Battlegrounds, Destiny 2, Dota 2, Counter-Strike 2, and Apex Legends—are free to play, and all 5 had been ranked in the identical class in 2023, a testomony to the profitable worth of a free-to-play hit. At the opposite finish of the spectrum, Elden Ring and Baldur’s Gate 3 are each hanging in there: Elden Ring little question benefited from the discharge of the excellent Shadow of the Erdtree enlargement in June, however Baldur’s Gate 3 sustaining its spot greater than a 12 months after launch—with quite a few meaty updates to its credit score however no full-on DLC—is one thing of a shock. Black Myth: Wukong and Helldivers 2 additionally made the reduce, as did Space Marine 2, Black Ops 6, and Palworld.
As I discussed, I additionally discover it attention-grabbing that Starfield has dropped out of the checklist utterly. Every platinum sport from 2023 is someplace within the 2024 rating—additional down the checklist in some instances (Sons of the Forest, as an example, is a bronze tier sport this 12 months)—however Starfield, except I’ve missed it, is totally out. That’s not meant as a dump on Starfield, I simply discover it genuinely stunning: Bethesda’s sci-fi RPG did not stay as much as the hype when it launched in August 2023 however that was an virtually unimaginable bar to achieve anyway, and it is not prefer it was a foul sport, simply not the anticipated leap ahead on the components.Â
The seeming drop-off in curiosity in Starfield (from a gross sales perspective, at the least) is especially notable on condition that the a lot older Fallout 4 remains to be on the checklist, and though it would not make bestsellers lists anymore, the 13-year-old Skyrim is a first-rate instance of a sport with long run gross sales success, and has been re-released on each platform identified to mankind.
Among new releases, Path of Exile 2 made the platinum tier regardless of solely popping out a number of weeks in the past, as did Stalker 2, which is nice to see. The hit strategy-city construct Manor Lords can also be up there, as is Dragon’s Dogma 2, Dragon Ball Sparking! Zero, and the annual updates of NBA 2K and EA FC.
I additionally discover the checklist of most performed video games on Steam Deck to be notable as a result of it is such an unbelievable jumble of, properly, every little thing. Stardew Valley, Balatro, and Vampire Survivors are rubbing shoulders with Cyberpunk 2077, Grand Theft Auto 5, and Elden Ring, a mix that displays simply how succesful Valve’s handheld gaming actually is.
Other classes within the 2024 roundup embody the video games most performed with a controller, a few of which is smart to me (Elden Ring, though it is not how I roll) and a few which don’t (Apex Legends, actually? You’ve received a mouse and controller proper right here), and prime VR video games primarily based on income. The full rundown of the 12 months’s greatest video games on Steam, and hyperlinks to earlier annual rankings (though the 2017 and ’18 rankings do not look like working for the time being) are up at retailer.steampowered.com.
