Steam releases · Week 42, 2021

Who takes the attention in this window · releases grouped by the observed scale of their publisher

WEEK 42 ’2118 Oct – 24 Oct 2021264 releasesMTWTFSS

week 42 of 2021 at a glance

In week 42 of 2021 (18 – 24 Oct 2021), 264 games released on Steam, and 40 of them shipped with a playable demo. The most anticipated is Inscryption (132,368 followers). Compared with the same window a year earlier (228 releases), it is 16 % busier. Data as of 2026-10-28.

window at a glance
Same window a year earlier
Releases	264
With a playable demo	40
Median followers, top 20 by demand	10,594
Free to play, of 257 with a known price	11 %

Mosaic ListPublishers

classreleasespeak playersmedianp90kept at 5w

Majorpublisher median 5,000+ reviews

——too few

Largepublisher median 1,000–5,000

——too few

Midpublisher median 200–1,000

43%

——too few

Smallpublisher median 50–200

——too few

Micropublisher median under 50

10%

——too few

Self-publishedno external publisher

168

41%

——too few

Class is the observed scale of a publisher’s portfolio: the median review count of what they released over the last 36 months. Budgets are invisible to us, so these are not the industry’s AAA and AA labels.Peak players is the highest concurrent count since release. “Kept at 5w” compares the fifth week against the first-week peak, counting only releases with at least 20 concurrent players.Concurrent players are observed from 2026-07-19 onward. Releases before that date have no player columns, and that is a gap in our watching, not a zero.

Game	Release	Followers
Inscryption	2021-10-19	132,368
Gloomhaven	2021-10-20	89,782
Escape Simulator	2021-10-19	85,690
Honkai Impact 3rd	2021-10-21	29,282
War Mongrels	2021-10-19	26,815
Fear Surrounds	2021-10-19	20,590
Dead Estate	2021-10-19	19,012
Dreams of Desire: Definitive Edition	2021-10-20	16,256
Sailwind	2021-10-18	14,741
Hacker Simulator	2021-10-20	11,712