May Was a Good Month for New Games on Steam
May abounded in successful launches on Steam. In addition to the hit game V Rising, My Time at Sandrock, We Were Here Forever, Warhammer 40,000: Chaos Gate - Daemonhunters, Songs of Conquest and Little Witch in the Woods did very well.
Valve has released a list of the biggest launches of May 2022 on Steam. The criterion was the revenue generated within two weeks of the debut. Traditionally, specific sales results or even the correct order of the titles on the list were not revealed. That's why we added the estimated data from the paid version of SteamSpy. Unfortunately, they can be very inaccurate, but it's better than nothing.
V Rising dominated Steam in May
No one will be surprised that the biggest debut of May turned out to be V Rising, a survival game with vampires in the lead roles. For many weeks the game ruled the Steam bestseller list and is one of the biggest surprises of this year.
The example of this game also shows why SteamSpy estimates should be approached with caution. According to this service, the game is owned by 3.3 million people, while according to official information sales exceeded only 2 million copies.
May was full of popular launches
The past month proved to be successful for new games on Steam. Users of the service rushed to buy crafting RPG My Time at Sandrock and the cooperative adventure We Were Here Forever. Also turn-based games did very well, including Warhammer 40,000: Chaos Gate - Daemonhunters and Songs of Conquest, as well as Little Witch in the Woods, the latter inspired by Stardew Valley.
Shooting games also sold wellm, for example Arma Reforger and Sniper Elite 5. Starfighter simulator Hardspace: Shipbreaker was also popular, which left early access in May. The game recently crossed the 500,000 copies sold mark.
It is also worth noting that among the biggest premieres of May we have Plants vs. Zombies: Garden Warfare 2: Deluxe Edition. This game is already more than six years old, but it hit Steam only last month.
The biggest game launches in May on Steam
# | Game | Number of owners as estimated by SteamSpy: |
1. | 3.3 million | |
2. | 787 thousand. * | |
3. | 458 thousand (the game was previously available in Early Access) | |
4. | 265 thousand. | |
5. | 200 thousand. | |
6. | 200 thousand. | |
7. | 190 thousand. | |
8. | 185 thousand. | |
9. | 121 thousand. | |
10. | 118 thousand. | |
11 | 109 thousand. | |
12. | 104 thousand. | |
13. | 103 thousand. | |
14. | 67 thousand. | |
15. | 50 thousand. | |
16. | 20 thousand. | |
17. | 15 thousand. | |
18. | 15 thousand. | |
19. | no data |
*Outward: Definitive Edition was a free upgrade for people who owned the older version of the game along with the Three Brothers DLC and sales of the previous edition are included in SteamSpy estimates.
The biggest DLC launches in May on Steam
SteamSpy does not provide data for DLCs, so the order is random.
- Stellaris: Overlord
- Gloomhaven - Jaws of the Lion
- House Flipper: Pets
- Poppy Playtime - Chapter 2
- V Rising - Dracula's Relics Pack
The biggest free launches in May (by concurrent player count)
Valve also published an additional list, including the most popular F2P game launches in May. In this case, the criterion was the number of concurrent users.
Last month proved to be extremely lean in terms of free-to-play game debuts on Steam. Only three projects qualified for the list, and the most popular of them (clicker Trimps) achieved an activity record of less than 4 thousand users.
# | Game | Current activity record according to SteamDB |
1. | 3865 | |
2. | 409 | |
3. | 147 |
We sorted the above list according to a game's overall activity record (obtained from SteamDB estimates), not just the one achieved last month, as this gives a better idea of the level of success a particular game has achieved on Steam.
