Steam Charts: Historical Edition
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Of course the original editions of the Steam Charts focused on those maps used by the early pioneers of steam-based exploration, so this week we take a historical look back at the origins of your favourite game series. For just one week, put aside your modern electricity-based computing, and come on a journey through time.
9. Final Fantasy XV: Windows Edition
I think it's probably fair to say that the Fantasies that came before the purportedly Final one are mostly forgotten. Some older readers may remember the preceding series of Fighting Fantasy games, or by a strange quirk, their novelisations. But a search through the lithographs at your local library will find evidence of the original series, Primal Fantasy.
This featured the adventures of some spiky-haired Japanese teenagers, arsing about in a field and then a city, and there was just so much talking.
8. Dying Light Enhanced Edition
Remember before the light was dying? It's fair to say that while it was a very pretty game, and jumping across the rooftops for the hell of it was fun, it's a franchise that perhaps didn't really come into its own until it introduced the zombies. Just all those perfectly alive people, wandering around the towns, not in the least bit interested in biting off your face, was arguably less thrilling.
(This collection of the original game, The Following, and season pass, is still 70% off until the end of Tuesday, to celebrate its fourth anniversary.)
7. Jump Force
While this is the first time we've seen characters from Dragon Ball Z, Naruto, Bleach, Yu-Gi-Oh!, and others all gathered in one fighting game, it's not the first in the series.
(Reader: Oh dear, this is already getting tired. Which way is he going with this one? Ooh, I know, he's going to do something about Hanna-Barbera characters all fighting, Fred Flintstone versus Inch High Private Eye versus Scrappy Doo. Get on with it then.)
Previously we of course had the Aqua Teen Hunger Force, the Police Force, and the basic forces of physics that control the universe.
(Reader: What? No. That doesn't even...)
6. Flibble Glibble Pants
What’s Another Thing You Could Buy Instead Of Ten Thousand Six Hundred And Sixty-Seven Copies Of GTA V Again?
This Lego man fancy dress costume
5. Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six Siege - Year 4 Pass
Traditionally we look forward when it comes to Ubi's endless franchise, at their future run of James Patterson conversions. But in this historical special, we'll look back to their original author-to-game transitions: Jane Austen's Mansfield Park.
Set in the open space of Mansfield Park, people played as either an adult Fanny Price or Edmund Bertram, returning to the estate after its being taken over by terrorists. Austen was involved in early development, providing broader story ideas for the follow-up to her most controversial novel, but died relatively early in the production. This led to some consternation over whether the overall direction as a first-person shooter would have met the vision of the author, who was widely believed to have preferred it be a more tactical third-person stealth-based game.
The series of course continued long after Austen, yet still bore her name. Particularly well received was Jane Austen's Mansfield Park: Portsmouth DLC.
4 & 10. Far Cry: New Dawn
The original Far Cry was of course the prequel to Crysis, and I'm pretty sure I'm not joking.
3. Plunkbat
I've been listening to a whole ton of Peals of late. I pick Trillium because it's literally the only music video they've ever made. Also it's great.
2. Devotion
Currently being review-bombed by Chinese players deeply upset that the game briefly referenced the meme that president Xi Jinping DEFINITELY DOES LOOK A LOT LIKE WINNIE THE POOH, this is of course not where Devotion began. The horror game follows on from 2017's Detention, which is the first of the Taiwanese developer's games to make it big worldwide.
But what about before that? What about other words that begin "De" and end in "tion" that I can pretend also existed, in the hope that after I've thought of them I can work out some sort of joke? Um, Demolition? Desensitisation? Deletion? There's got to be gold in this idea. I've typed it all out now, and it'll take me forever to find the Backspace key. Wait! I've got it! Desperation!
1. Sid Meier's Civilization VI: Gathering Storm
Sid Meier's Sid Meier's Civilization VI: Sid Meier's Gathering Storm is of course the four hundred and ninetieth game in Sid Meier's Sid Meier's Civilization series. It has been around as long as civilisation itself. But what many people don't know is the series existed pre-civilisation, when it was known as Sid Meier's Person.
This is an excellent joke. You might not think so, but I can assure you that the fault is yours alone.
The Steam Charts are compiled via Steam's internal charts of the highest grossing games on Steam over the previous week.