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New World, Valheim and Battlefield 2042 among 2021's top Steam games by revenue

New World, Valheim and Battlefield 2042 among 2021's top Steam games by revenue

Four of the titles that made the most money on Steam last year were newly-launched releases.

That's according to Valve, which has published the Top 100 games by revenue, showing that five titles in its Platinum category – the 12 most successful title of the year – were projects that made their debut on Steam during 2021.

Amazon's New World, Valheim from Coffee Stain, NetEase's battle royale title Naraka: Bladepoint, as well as EA's Battlefield 2042 appeared in the top echelon of titles on Valve's platform last year. Meanwhile, horror romp Dead by Daylight made its debut in the Platinum tier, too, having launched in 2016, as has 2019 battle royale game Apex Legends, which came to Steam during 2020.

The rest of the Top 12 titles that make up the Platinum tier are the usual suspects; Valve's own DOTA 2 and Counter-Strike: Global Offensive make an appearance, as does Grand Theft Auto V, Playerunknown's Battlegrounds, Destiny 2 and Rainbow Six: Siege.

Meanwhile, Valve has revealed the most-played games of 2021 by concurrent players, featuring – again – many familiar faces, such as Playerunknown's Battlegrounds, GTAV, DOTA 2 and CS:GO, but also Valheim, Rust, Cyberpunk 2077, Apex Legends, Halo Infinite and New World.


PCGamesInsider Contributing Editor

Alex Calvin is a freelance journalist who writes about the business of games. He started out at UK trade paper MCV in 2013 and left as deputy editor over three years later. In June 2017, he joined Steel Media as the editor for new site PCGamesInsider.biz. In October 2019 he left this full-time position at the company but still contributes to the site on a daily basis. He has also written for GamesIndustry.biz, VGC, Games London, The Observer/Guardian and Esquire UK.