What were the most popular Steam games of 2025? Players have a sense based on Steam charts, general vibes, and what dominated conversations this year, but analyst Simon Carless recently shared official GameDiscoverCo. estimates for the top-performing games that show just how much RPGs and multiplayer games reigned supreme.
The latest edition of his excellent newsletter contains estimates for the top-20 new games on Steam this year by both total sales and total revenue. Here’s the list of games with the most copies sold:
20. Revenge on Gold Diggers
19. Borderlands 4
18. Dispatch
17. Mage Arena
16. The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion Remastered
15. Split Fiction
14. Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2
13. Stellar Blade
12. Megabonk
11. Elden Ring Nightreign
10. Clair Obscur: Expedition 33
9. RV There Yet?
8. Escape From Duckov
7. Hollow Knight: Silksong
6. Arc Raiders
5. Monster Hunter Wilds
4. Schedule I
3. Battlefield 6
2. Peak
1. R.E.P.O.
What stands out? Well, as Carless notes, the “friendslop” like Peak and R.E.P.O. were huge, suggesting that many players do indeed just want to play games in which the co-op mechanics encourage goofing around with others. Multiplayer games in general were dominant, taking the six top slots. Fantasy RPGs were also super popular, with Oblivion, Deliverance 2, and Clair Obscur all having strong showings. I also think it’s worth calling out Borderlands 4 and Monster Hunter Wilds specifically. Both struggled with PC optimization and word-of-mouth probably did them no favors, but they landed spots here regardless. Even so, it’s surprising to see Borderlands 4 below an episodic narrative game like Dispatch.
This list is arranged by total sales though, and Borderlands 4 launched at $70. When you look at the list of top 20 games by revenue instead, Borderlands 4 breaks into the top 10 and Dispatch (which is only $30) falls to number 19. That list is still very much skewed back toward 2025’s conventional blockbusters, with Battlefield 6 at number 1. Clearly a big part of which games break out big time on Steam comes down to a lower barrier to entry. Schedule I is only $20, R.E.P.O is only $10, and Peak is just $8.
Are games that engineer viral moments and encourage you to bully your friends into buying them the key to unlocking success on Steam, or has “friendslop” run its course? At the very least, these games are cheaper and quicker to make than MMOs, MOBAs, and RPGs, so we probably won’t have to put up with a bunch of knock-offs that missed the boat launching in 2028.
