Overview
- Valve’s year-end lists (covering Jan 1–Dec 1) group top new releases into a randomized Platinum tier that features Elden Ring: Nightreign, Battlefield 6, Arc Raiders, Monster Hunter Wilds, Dune Awakening, EA FC 26, Borderlands 4, Civilization 7, Oblivion Remastered, and Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2.
- Two independent titles—Hollow Knight: Silksong and Schedule 1—cracked the Platinum tier despite lower price points, implying very high unit sales on Steam.
- Analysis of the Platinum cohort finds nine of the 12 top-earning new releases emphasize multiplayer or live monetization, signaling the model’s continued commercial dominance on PC.
- Schedule 1, a self-published Early Access release from a lone Australian developer, is reported to have generated multi-million-dollar revenue since its March launch.
- The snapshot differs from 2025’s awards landscape—Game Awards sweeper Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 placed in Steam’s Gold tier—and reflects Steam revenue only with results randomized within tiers.