Lost Ark Reclaims Top Spot for First Time Since April
A sequel to BONEWORKS called BONELAB debuts at #3.
Hey folks! Before I start the newsletter, I wanted to thank you all for the support. The number of you who chose to subscribe, both free and paid, was far beyond what I hoped for during the first week. I’m excited to be starting this adventure with you all and I hope it proves useful and informative!
The Top Five
It may surprise you to see the Steam Deck continue to be the best selling product on Steam, but considering the cost, it’s not. Heck, the last time it wasn’t #1 on the rankings was back in June when it was briefly surpassed by Counter-Strike: Global Offensive and a few other new or freshly updated titles. Once Valve got the production woes worked out, the handheld hasn’t looked back.
Outside of that, Lost Ark claims the top spot held by an actual video game thanks to the Rage with the Machinist update introducing a new advanced class, legion raid, and a Punika Powerpass.
It’s been an interesting game to monitor since release back in February. After launching to over one million peak players it shrunk down to average roughly half of that through to June. An average player count of 450,000 is nothing to scoff at, though it has since halved again to 150,000-200,000 from July to now.
While revenue has spiked with the new patch, it certainly hasn’t made that much of a splash with peak users just barely beating out a random spike from earlier in September.
Sadly, Lost Ark user numbers are pretty much in a vacuum here. Final Fantasy XIV has a standalone launcher and is only averaging around 30,000 players on Steam. While neither FFXIV or World of Warcraft put out subscriber numbers, it’s been commonly accepted that both are duking it out as the top two MMOs on the scene.
Five New Games
BONELAB (#3)
What the hell is a BONELAB? Sound a bit familiar? You’re probably thinking of 2019’s BONEWORKS, another VR game from Stress Level Zero. Okay, I’m going to stop typing the titles like that now.
If you liked Boneworks, Bonelab is certainly promising as it supports modding from day one and doesn’t require you to play through a nine hour campaign just to unlock the sandbox. That said, this is a game that’s going to get better as time goes on, so by no means do you need to jump in right now.
Foxhole (#45)
Foxhole has been in early access for years, but has finally made the jump to 1.0 and now supports a variety of new features aside from making and fighting in foxholes.
Player-built facilities where you can support efforts by producing goods.
Trains.
Flamethrowers.
Rocket artillery.
The Legend of Heroes: Trails from Zero (#52)
For the first time, officially at least, Trails from Zero, the 2010 Legend of Heroes title from Nihon Falcom is available in English. By this point you probably already know whether or not that’s for you.
Moonbreaker (#64)
Moonbreaker is a turn-based strategy sci-fi game played with digital miniatures complete with the ability to paint them yourself!
Shatterline (#84)
While not new per-se, Shatterline came out in early September, the free-to-play shooter from Kyiv, Ukraine developer Frag Lab LLC has returned to the charts. There’s certainly no shortage of hero based shooters out there, but if you want to check out another arena FPS that also has a roguelike co-op mode, this is one to look at.
The Movers
Grounded has finally reached 1.0 and is officially out of early access. With it comes four new areas to explore, nine new creatures (including more spiders, ugh), a new weapon types, more gear to collect, and a whole lot of quality of life improvements. You can read more about it over on the patch page.
Two “new” games from last week have also jumped up the charts including Dome Keeper, a self-described “roguelike survival miner” and Terra Invicta which is XCOM-like with global geopolitics as you prepare for an alien invasion and expand amongst the galaxy, establishing forward bases and construction facilities. In an interesting change, the solar system actually orbits the sun creating some really interesting challenges.
+84 Grounded
+52 Dome Keeper
+21 Terra Invicta
+21 Phasmophobia
The Sliders
When it comes to games sliding down the rankings, it should be no surprise to see titles that spiked last week. It’s safe to say the hype around Trombone Champ has fallen off and Construction Simulator is now more than a week out from release. The same is true with Stellaris and its latest DLC.
God of War (2018) and Civilization VI are both just suffering from a recent sale ending.
-63 Trombone Champ
-46 Stellaris
Longest Lasting
Not a whole lot to update on this front, as expected. I will note, however, that out of all of these games, Red Dead Redemption 2 is the most at risk as it is currently hovering around 70 out of 100. The rest of the top ten are all ranking around the top 30.
Counter-Strike: Global Offensive (530 Weeks)
Warframe (497 Weeks)
Grand Theft Auto V (403 Weeks)
The Elder Scrolls Online (402 Weeks)
Rust (380 Weeks)
Tom Clancy’s Rainbow Six Siege (359 Weeks)
Final Fantasy XIV Online (305 Weeks)
Dead by Daylight (282 Weeks)
Destiny 2 (169 Weeks)
Red Dead Redemption 2 (148 Weeks)
That’s all folks! If you want to compare this week’s newsletter to the numbers from last week’s, here’s a handy link to that.