Steam September top 20: Gears 5, Spyro, and NBA 2K20

Today, Valve released the list of the top 20 best-performing new game releases on Steam for September. The company has also highlighted some important themes. Gaming fans continue to show up to Steam for a wide variety of releases, but some categories are performing especially well.

One of those categories is Early Access, which is Steam’s portal for unfinished games. Early Access always has a lot of representation on Steam’s monthly chart. That’s true for September as well.

“We talk about Early Access quite a bit in these posts, and for good reason,” reads a Steam blog. “With eight titles this month either entering or launching from early access, this model of development continues to be a unique and valuable option for creating a product with involvement and feedback from the community.”

Valve also noted that nine different studios had success launching their first product ever on Steam. Green Hell, Gears 5, Session, Ni No Kuni, Crying Suns, Noita, Flotsam, Cube World, and Maelstrom are all from studios who never released anything on the platform before.

Controllers are popular on Steam

It may seem counterintuitive, but Steam customers love games that support controllers. Over 18 games on September’s list support plugging in a gamepad.

“Supporting is one thing, but we were curious to see how many players are actually using them,” reads the Steam blog. “In measuring the number of controller sessions for games released in September, we were quite excited with the level of engagement. As some may have expected, Pro Evolution Soccer, NBA2K, and Code Vein are incredibly popular with controllers — all three landed in the top 10 most controller sessions for September across the entire Steam catalog.”

Controller use was also common in many of September’s other games, though.

“Session, River City Girls, Ni no Kuni, Blasphemous, Spyro, Surge 2, and Final Fantasy VIII all registered more than half of their September game sessions from players with controllers,” reads the blog. “There is no single way of enjoying games on Steam, and this is further testament that both players and developers can benefit from a variety of input options.”

Let check out the full list of best-selling games.