Steam releases · Q1 2026

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

Q1 20261 Jan – 31 Mar 20265,879 releasesJFM

Q4 2025 Now Q2 2026

Q1 2026 at a glance

In Q1 2026 (1 Jan – 31 Mar 2026), 5,879 games released on Steam, and 1,499 of them shipped with a playable demo. The most anticipated is Crimson Desert Enhanced (324,737 followers). Compared with the same window a year earlier (5,978 releases), it is 2 % quieter. Data as of 2026-10-28.

window at a glance
Same window a year earlier
Releases	5,879
With a playable demo	1,499
Median followers, top 20 by demand	108,064
Free to play, of 5,783 with a known price	13 %

Mosaic ListPublishers

classreleasespeak playersmedianp90kept at 5w

Majorpublisher median 5,000+ reviews

——too few

Largepublisher median 1,000–5,000

12%

——too few

Midpublisher median 200–1,000

153

——too few

Smallpublisher median 50–200

233

——too few

Micropublisher median under 50

661

——too few

Self-publishedno external publisher

4,764

71%

——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.

inside Q1 2026

months

weeks

Game	Release	Followers
Crimson Desert Enhanced	2026-03-19	324,737
Resident Evil Requiem	2026-02-26	269,147
Slay the Spire 2	2026-03-05	194,562
Timberborn	2026-03-12	184,308
Going Medieval	2026-03-17	180,830
StarRupture	2026-01-06	142,434
Marathon	2026-03-05	125,135
Half Sword	2026-01-30	115,291
Terra Invicta	2026-01-05	108,798
HumanitZ	2026-02-06	108,156