Steam's most played games this year include just two 2025 releases

Another year is done and dusted, and for many, it can be a fun time to look back at what games you spent the most time playing (unless you're an Xbox fan). It might also be interesting to see which games will dominate our collective free time during 2025, and to do so, Steam has once again offered an interesting list of the most played titles in 2025.

Unsurprisingly, it's full of big hitters like Counter Strike and Marvel Rivals, and a series of other multiplayer games that dominate your life while you're going through those stages. However, one of the more interesting aspects of this list is that only two of the 12 games were released in 2025.

Steam's most played games this year include just two 2025 releases

We know that people are spending less on new games at the moment, which became very clear after Steam Replay revealed that only 14 percent of Steam's total playtime in 2025 was spent on games that launched this year. Among the 12 most played games this year, Peak and Repo are the only ones represented this year, with Ark Riders, Hollow Knight: Silksong, or Monster Hunter Wilds in sight. In fact, there are many games on the list that are more than a decade old.

Peak, REPO, and Schedule 1 characters on a pink and black background.

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Nearly half of this year's best-performing Steam games came from double-A or indie studios

Time is changing.

Stardew Valley, Terraria, and Left 4 Dead 2 were all played more than the vast majority of 2025's offerings, which makes sense given how popular they've been for so long. It's possible that games like Arc Raiders would have appeared if they had launched earlier in the year, lacking the advantage of not having a full 12 months.

Then again, even if you expand the list of this year's most played titles to 24, you'll still only get the likes of Schedule 1, Battlefield 6, and Call of Duty, all of which you'd expect to be on the list any year they're released. In fact, Call of Duty was in the top 12 in both 2024 and 2023, which reinforces the claim that Black Ops 6 is extremely disappointing in terms of players this year.

Of all the games that could represent 2025, it's interesting to see so-called “friendslop” games like Peek and Repo above all others, which could indicate where the industry is headed. People will either want their cheap and fun experiences to play with their friends, or they'll stick with the game they've always played, and it will be interesting to see how the industry adapts to that.