Another year is drawing to a close and of course one thing must not be missing: the annual one Steam annual charts. Always on time in the last days of December, Valve presents the most successful games of the past twelve months – also in 2021 and thus shows one thing above all: Multiplayer and long-term support pay off.
Both the best-selling games and the most played games of the year are dominated by online games on Steam. This also applies to the most successful innovations, in which almost all games have a multiplayer component. But let’s take a closer look at the lists.
Instead of looking back, would you rather look ahead? Steam users are especially looking forward to these games in 2022:
Steam:
Most wanted games for 2022
These are the most successful Steam games in 2021
Let’s start at the top with the top sellers. There you will find many familiar faces – but not only. But a few newcomers were also able to prevail. The following applies: According to Valve, the games are not arranged according to success, but in a random order. So no conclusions can be drawn about which of the platinum winners rang the cash register the most.
All of the following games belong to the so-called platinum category. These are the games that achieved the highest sales in 2021. Not only the income from sales prices was counted, but DLCs and in-game microtransactions are also included. For this reason, some Free2Play games are again strongly represented here.
The 12 top-grossing Steam games in 2021
What stands out here: Multiplayer games are the great guarantors of success. This is shown by long-running favorites such as GTA 5, Dota 2 and Counter-Strike: Global Offensive, which are included for the sixth time in a row. Dead by Daylight and Apex Legends, who haven’t made it that far in 2020, are brand new. In the case of the Battle Royale shooter, it should be mentioned that this has only been available on Steam since November 2020.
But you shouldn’t underestimate the co-op game with your favorite horror creatures either. Colleague Dennis summarized why you should definitely try Dead by Daylight.
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Give Dead by Daylight a chance
With Valheim, Battlefield 2042, Naraka: Bladepoint and New World, four new products are also represented in the platinum list. Microsoft’s racing game Forza Horizon 5 missed the leap and has to be content with gold: The availability of the Xbox Game Pass may well have played a role here.
The 10 most played games on Steam in 2021
What applies to the top-selling games is also true for the most popular games: Multiplayer is also very dominant here. Only a role play can counteract the trend to some extent. According to Valve, this list is also arranged purely at random.
What stands out here: With Cyberpunk 2077 there is only one single player game (and a hotly discussed one at that) in this list. With Rust and Halo: Infinite there are also two games that are not among the absolute best-selling games on Steam, but caused a sensation with their player numbers. In the case of the survival game Rust, the hype at the beginning of the year should have been one of the reasons for its success:
Record numbers for Rust
Where does the hype come from?
With Valheim there is also a second survival game in the platinum area. It is not too big a surprise, because the Vikings game was able to cast its spell over hundreds of thousands of games when it launched in Early Access.
The 12 best-selling novelties on Steam 2021
In addition to a general bestseller list, Valve also shows which new products have sold particularly well this year. This results in a very colorful mix of genres, but once again it is above all games with online modes that stand out. This list is also arranged at random and has no specific num bers.
What stands out here: Despite Xbox Game Pass, Microsoft has a strong presence on Steam. Three of the publisher’s games were able to place themselves well as innovations. Strategy players in particular should be happy about the success of Age of Empires 4. In his analysis, Dimi provides reasons why Microsoft’s plan with the series has worked so well so far:
opinion
What Age of Empires delivers has never been seen before
Valve also provides another interesting statistic something hidden in a blog post: The top 25 new publications sorted by month and in direct comparison with the previous year. While the autumn season was comparably strong in both years, spring 2021 was quite uneventful. The sluggish game year only picked up speed in May before the summer break immediately slowed it down again.
Even more success lists
In addition to the top sellers and most played games, Valve also published lists of the best-selling games that left Early Access this year, to the most successful VR games and to the Play with most controller users.
If you notice from the list that one or the other hit has passed you by, then you now have a good time to catch up: The big Steam winter sale is still running until January 5, 2022, with numerous of the games mentioned here are cheaper.
And if you are looking for a different review of the year, then take a look at Peter’s column:
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2021 was worse than expected and better than expected
However, if you’d rather be interested in games that don’t necessarily appear in any top lists, then we can also give you a hand. In a special article we present 10 games that are guaranteed to have flown under the radar for some in 2021.
What would your list of the most played Steam games look like, which insider tips have you discovered and what is your opinion on the Steam lists? Would you have guessed or guessed all the platinum winners? Write it to us in the comments.
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