Steam Charts: surviving eternity

Hallo! John's away so I'm taking over for our latest weekly rundown of the biggest-selling games on Steam over the previous seven days. Familiar faces are here, of course, but the charts also include more survival games than I've seen in yonks. The slightest peek of sun outside and you lot start acting as if it's the end of the world, eh?

10. Far Cry 5

Ubisoft's open-world shooty sandbox is slowly slipping down the charts and should soon be bumped out, but that's no surprise - 's just how new releases go, yeah? Not that Far Cry 5 is strictly a one-'n'-done, as the B movie DLCs should start rolling soon, and they'll bring new stuff to the Far Cry 5 Arcade editor too. Gang, if you've poking around the Arcade recently, how's it shaping up as players master the tools?

9. Pillars Of Eternity II: Deadfire

Ninth seems quite low for the debut of a new olde RPGe from Obsidian Entertainment, even if our John's coming off quite lukewarm in his Pillars Of Eternity II: Deadfire review:

"Exploring the nautical map, finding all the undiscovered islands, taking on pirates, or indulging in some piracy, looting shipwrecks, it all sounds like it should be so much more fun. But in execution it's mostly an elaborate menu. Find a battle on an island and you'll be in a single location, and when the fight's over, there's nowhere to explore, no hidden treats, no dungeons to deep dive. There's really nothing to be gained, beyond easily bought resources, from exploration, which is such a miss.

"I think that describes a lot of what I've seen so far: swings and misses. The naval battles are beautifully delivered, but almost immediately redundant, and don't meaningfully impact a boarding raid. The story is enormous and intricate, but doesn't feel weighty or important. The combat is astonishingly detailed, but played at the standard setting rarely requires you to use its many mechanisms."

Still, ninth, that's not terrible, is it?

8. A Total War Saga: Thrones Of Britannia

It's a new Total War game doing Total War things, I'll incredibly crudely crunch Nic Rueben's A Total War Saga: Thrones Of Britannia review down to, and that's just peachy to a large number of people. The developers have recently laid out some of their post-launch update plans, including making it a little more difficult and trying to add new depths to parts including the culture and faction systems. Not all of the changes in this first game of the new Saga subseries have gone down super-well with long-time players, see.

7. Stardew Valley

The singleplayer farm-o-adventure-a-living RPG was already lovely for a quiet getaway, and now that multiplayer is in public testing it's turning out to be lovely for a quiet life with your pals too.

"Multiplayer Stardew Valley truly brings out the feeling of community that the single player tries to evoke and it led to a totally different farm life than the one I would have created alone," Jay Castello told us. A few bugs, as you'd expect in beta, but largely a lovely farmhang. And that's probably why it's back in the charts lately.

6. The Forest

Finally out of early access, the sandbox survival game is still crafting a success. I'm not much one for survival games but The Forest does interest me more than most, except for the fact that its mutants are so horrible that I'm too much of a baby to stick it out. Congrats to developers Endnight Games for successfully making things too awful to be near. You know the ones I mean.

5. Frostpunk

More survival! This time from a broad management perspective, rather than the usual first-person tree-punching one. Can you keep a furnace stoked and a colony alive and merry in the apocalyptic frozen wasteland we know as England? The RPS Verdict and Alec's diary would suggest no, probably not.

4. Pillars Of Eternity II: Deadfire

Ohhh! Psych! Hooked! Fished in! Yes, Deadfire is way up the charts too. A quirk of how Valve calculate their charts means that Deadfire appears twice, see, so I'd guess the one at #9 is pre-orders. Congrats, Obsidian.

3. Conan Exiles

And yet more survival! Funcom's fantasy barbarian sandbox launched properly last week, after 15 months in early access, and it's been a big launch. Playercounts are an order of magnitude higher than they were two months ago (almost back up to numbers when it first entered early access), Funcom had to bring extra servers online, and here it is at #3 on the charts. Between this and The Forest, it's a good time for sandbox survival. The genre may have spawned battle royale shooters but the parent is certainly still alive.

2. Grand Theft Auto V

Last week was one of those rare times when GTA V didn't appear in the top ten, but it's bounced right back. That might have been helped by Rockstar giving away so much GTA Online money, or it could just be that hey, it's GTA.

I had thought I'd never return to GTA Online after my account was temp-banned and wiped for (I think?) a mishap when looking at diorama mods but the free cash brought me back. With double payouts of loads of events this week too, I've earned more than I had before and explored a lot of modes I hadn't tried. I don't race much so I was especially surprised by the TrackMania-ish Hotring mode with thirty cars whooshing over zoompads and smashing each other up. Good crimetimes.

1. Playerunknown's Battlegrounds

I would like to report back that I fully explored the battle royale shooter's new island of Sanhok over the weekend's public testing, but in truth I was engrossed in GTA Online and didn't get much further than dicking about lobbing apples around Sanhok's lobby. I did enjoy throwing the fruit, mind.

The Steam Charts come via Steam's internal charts of the highest grossing games on Steam over the previous week, as compiled and released by Valve.