Underground games on Steam
The niche at a glance
Underground on Steam: 1,282 released games, 516 in the last 12 months, 758 announced and still unreleased. Median lifetime reviews: 10. 49% of them never reached 10 reviews. Free to play: 9%. Underground is a Steam store tag, applied by the developer and refined by players; a game carries several tags at once, so niche counts overlap and do not add up to the size of the Steam catalogue. Data as of .
What releases end up with
lifetime reviews · released 3 years ago to 90 days ago · failures included564 releasesReleases per year
outcomes count only games released more than 90 days ago, anything newer has not had time to gather reviewsUnderground × mechanics: what the pairings end up with
every mechanics tag shipped with Underground at least 5 times · same window× mechanics× presentation| Underground × | 3 y | 12 m | median | ≥500 | adjusted | vs chance | last hit | who made it | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Crafting | 48 | 22 | 27 | 22.9% 13%–37% | 18.1% | cliché ×2.08 | 165 d |    | |
| Sandbox | 46 | 18 | 32 | 19.6% 11%–33% | 15.7% | cliché ×1.65 | 165 d | | |
| Open World | 37 | 16 | 17 | 18.9% 9%–34% | 14.6% | ordinary ×1.07 | 173 d |   | |
| Third-Person Shooter | 10 | 4 | 11 | under 20 | 14.4% | ordinary ×0.78 | 195 d |    | |
| Base Building | 17 | 5 | 205 | under 20 | 14.4% | cliché ×1.95 | 189 d |   | |
| Destruction | 17 | 10 | 12 | under 20 | 14.4% | cliché ×3.01 | 131 d |    | |
| Survival | 62 | 19 | 12 | 16.1% 9%–27% | 13.8% | cliché ×1.83 | 189 d |  | |
| Character Customization | 42 | 15 | 24 | 16.7% 8%–31% | 13.4% | ordinary ×1.26 | 487 d |   | |
| Multiple Endings | 57 | 26 | 21 | 15.8% 9%–27% | 13.4% | ordinary ×1.18 | 173 d |  | |
| Economy | 20 | 9 | 20 | 20.0% 8%–42% | 13.3% | cliché ×1.76 | 165 d |  | |
| Auto Battler | 6 | 4 | 14 | under 20 | 12.8% | ordinary ×0.95 | 91 d |   | |
| Simulation | 108 | 46 | 25 | 13.9% 9%–22% | 12.8% | ordinary ×0.93 | 131 d |  | |
| Survival Horror | 61 | 21 | 13 | 14.8% 8%–26% | 12.8% | cliché ×2.41 | 189 d |  | |
| Life Sim | 8 | 1 | 96 | under 20 | 11.9% | ordinary ×0.80 | 173 d |   | |
| Party-Based RPG | 8 | 3 | 35 | under 20 | 11.9% | ordinary ×0.98 | 487 d |  |
About these numbers
“Adjusted” is the share pulled towards the catalogue with the weight of twenty releases: the top of any ranked list is optimistic (out of a hundred pairings one will show 35 % on 23 releases by luck alone), and the adjustment is what stops a small lucky group from leading. The band next to the raw share is the 95 % interval. This list is the same for everyone today; the second opinion is the description-based one on Pitch comps.
