Steam Top 10: The Stars Your Destination
Best-sellers for last week
Well, more accurately it's The Souls Your Destination, but Dark Souls III being a chart-topper is old news now. This week's Steam shaker-upper is Paradox's intergalactic grand strategy title Stellaris - but one of PC gaming's oldest men takes up residence in the top ten too.
1. DARK SOULS III
Last week, Dark Souls was mostly a mystery to me. This week, it is almost all I think about. I am deep into the first game, having decided to do things from the start before returning to III. Please believe me, I am an inept and fearful gamer, but even I found a way into Dark Souls and now the scales have fallen from my eyes. Believe.
2. DOOM
This might just be the Doom series' first Steam chart placement, right? I have no opinion on the game itself yet, though I believe I'm handling the review. However, I am extremely angry at it because in having the same name as its noble forebear, it totally screws with RPS' tagging system. Anyway, this is here based on pre-orders alone, which I'm slightly surprised by given apparent online reception to betas and whatnot has been divided.
3. Counter-Strike: Global Offensive
Counter-Strike only remains here because lead developer Ian Counter-Strike has obtained a copy of a Gabe Newell sex tape, which he threatens to make public unless the charts are massaged to included a top ten placement every week until the end of time.
4. Battleborn
I've a sneaking suspicion that Gearbox's "FPS; hobby-grade coop campaign; genre-blended, multi-mode competitive e-sports; meta-growth, choice + epic Battleborn Heroes" would be riding an awful lot higher had Blizzard's ostensibly similar but more internet-stimulating Overwatch not been so imminent. That, by the way, is not in the charts because Blizzard resolutely refuse to sell their stuff via Steam - too much money to be made from direct sales, y'see.
5. Stellaris
And here's Paradox, one time masters of the niche, with another crossover hit on their hands to follow up Cities: Skylines. The space-set grand strategy game has seemingly caught the attention of people who don't play Crusader Kings, and our Adam is mostly in love with it. I'll be dropping in, perhaps for a diary series, this week, presuming I can somehow break my Souls habit.
6. Star Wars Collection
In honour of Mode 7 Day, there were assorted Star Wars discounts on Steam - this pack includes most of the shooters, plus the KOTOR series, so was probably more appealing to the slavering hordes than the more simulatory Classics Collection. It was down from £75 to £18 last week, hence the chart placement.
7. Total War: WARHAMMER
Still here on pre-orders alone, and that's despite the revelation that the playable Chaos faction would now be available to anyone who bought the game up to a week after release, rather than just speculative purchasers, as was controversially the case at first.
8. Grand Theft Auto V
I dunno, there was probably a thing. Like a car or an event or something. But mostly it's here because GTA, innit.
9. ARK: Survival Evolved
10. Stellaris
I think - but I'm not sure, because dammit Jim I'm a games blogger not a statistician - that this is the £41 Nova edition, which includes an extra alien race, as well as a soundtrack. But there's also a £51 Galaxy Edition which has some ebooks and stuff too; we all know that Young People today don't read anything that isn't a sext, so I doubt this is that version, though.