Steam, PlayStation, and Xbox’s most downloaded games (week 28): College Football 26 and Tony Hawk score
Plus, a look at Steam's top games by copies sold, a video of our appearance on the world's most popular PlayStation podcast, RimWorld's new DLC smashing it, and more.
College Football and Tony Hawk took the top spots by downloads last week
The top spot for cross-platform downloads last week went to EA Sports College Football 26, with a whopping 1.9 million unique downloads. It officially launched on July 10 (or July 7 for those who bought the MVP Bundle or Deluxe edition).
College Football 26 had twice as many downloads on Xbox versus PlayStation, owing to the 10-hour trial for EA Play members (also available via Game Pass Ultimate).
College Football 26 has now amassed a million players on PS5 alone – 97% via the US, unsurprisingly. Around 95% of the PS5 players played the previous title, College Football 25. And about 67% played Madden 25, suggesting a cohort of players interested in College Football games but NOT Madden.
On a more gloomy note, College Football 26 is selling about a third as fast as College Football 25 on PS5, perhaps due to the pent-up demand for last year’s edition (the first College Football release in over a decade, during the PS3 and Xbox 360 generation!)
However, we expect a significant increase in sales when the real-world college football NCAA season kicks off next month.
Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 3+4 – a remake of the 2001 and 2002 classics – dropped in on July 11 (or July 9 for those who forked out an extra $20 for early access). THPS 3+4 scored 1.2 million downloads last week, with a nice 69% of them coming via Xbox.
This is due to THPS launching on Game Pass Ultimate as a first-party Xbox game. It’s sold just over 100 K copies across PlayStation and Steam (over 85% via PlayStation), representing revenues of around $3.2 million.
Just over 77% of the PlayStation players have also played THPS 1+2. To date, around 1.7 million Xbox players have played THPS 3+4, predominantly via their Game Pass Ultimate subscriptions.
With that not-so-humble brag out of the way, here’s the rest of the top 5 by downloads across Steam, Xbox and PC:
PEAK (#3), a hilariously goofy co-op climbing game, passed a million downloads last week, exclusively on Steam. Keep reading to the next section for an update on PEAK’s continued success.
Cyberpunk 2077 (#4) had 765 K downloads last week. Over 83% of these (636 K) came from PlayStation, thanks to Cyberpunk’s inclusion on PlayStation Plus Extra and Premium from June 9. That said, over 120 K Steam users downloaded Cyberpunk last week thanks to its discount to $21 (its lowest Steam price yet). Cyberpunk has now crossed 16.4 million copies sold on Steam.
Mecha Break (#5), a free-to-play PVP mech game from Chinese company Seasun Games, was downloaded 668 K times last week. Around 533 K of the downloads last week came in via Steam versus 135 K on Xbox (it’s not out on PlayStation yet). Mecha Break’s top market on Steam is China (27% of players), followed by the US (20%). To date, It has amassed 1.7 million players on Steam, and 600 K on Xbox, but DAU and CCU numbers are declining rapidly.
Quite the eventful week for cross-platform downloads, right? Let’s move on to last week’s top games by copies sold on Steam.
PEAK continues to climb
PEAK was last week’s top game by copies sold on Steam, selling another million copies last week alone. This helped it cross the five-million mark overall.
PEAK has now sold over 5.6 million copies in total and generated revenues of over $31 million. It’s sold another 300 K+ copies since Monday. 🤯
While PEAK’s daily copies sold delta is trending downwards, which you can see in the Alinea platform screenshot below, PEAK is one heavy discount away from another massive spike in copies sold:
Similarly, indie horror phenomenon R.E.P.O (#4) managed to sell another 278 K copies last week.
Owing to its viral success and low price point, R.E.P.O has sold over 16 million copies overall, with revenues of $126 million. It’s sold more copies than ANY other game on Steam this year.
And almost two-thirds of PEAK players have also played R.E.P.O.
What a time for co-op indies!
Jurassic discounts gobble up the remainder of the top 5
Price drops helped drive over 250 K copies sold for the following titles:
Jurassic World Evolution 2 (#2) slashed its price by -95% to $3, helping it sell just shy of 300 K copies last week. The well-timed discount coincides with the new Jurassic World movie and promotion for Jurassic World Evolution 3, which was Steam’s #2 upcoming game by new followers last week (more on that here)
Sons of the Forest (#3) foraged another 292 K copies sold on Steam last week, adding to the 473 K it sold the week before. It’s all thanks to its lowest-ever discount ($30 down to $10) since its early access launch back in 2023. Sons of the Forest has sold 13.9 million copies on Steam so far, generating revenues of over $291 million
Stardew Valley (#5) harvested another 277 K copies sold last week, thanks to a half-price discount that ran from June 26 to July 9. That discount also helped Stardew sell 500 K copies overall in June. It’s sold 1.2 million Steam copies since the start of June!
Want to see track the ongoing performance of any of these titles? Reach out for a trial of our platform!
RimWorld’s DLC sold over 200 K copies last week on Steam
We often get the question, ‘‘do you track DLC data?’’ And the answer is ‘‘yes – yes we do.’’ On that note, Ludeon Studios’ hit sci-fi colony sim, RimWorld, has continued its success journey with its highly anticipated DLC, Odyssey. It launched on July 11 and quickly rocketed to #6 on the ranking over the weekend.
The core game, which officially launched in 2018 after a successful crowdfunding campaign in 2013, has sold over 5 million copies on Steam – that’s revenues of over $130 million.
The Odyssey DLC sold 206 K copies on Steam last week (its launch week), but has now reached over 250 K (roughly $5 million in revenue).
Odyssey is also trending far above RimWorld’s last two DLCs – Anomaly and BioTech – and is tracking best in the US, followed by Russia and China.
It’s great to see the continued success of a fantastic game crafted by a talented, lean team. And fans are obsessed. Over half of RimWorld’s Steam players have played for over 50 hours, with around 28% having played for over 100 hours, and 10% over 500 hours (yes, 500!).
The Odyssey DLC also led to RimWorld’s highest-ever CCU number. Almost 95 K Steam players were enjoying the game at around 6 PM CET on July 13:
RimWorld’s winning recipe of procedural gameplay, emergent storytelling, deep sim elements, and replayability is clearly a winning one. It was averaging 300 K DAUs on Saturday and Sunday. You love to see it.
Want to see real-time CCU data, DLC data, or DAU data in action on our platform? Let us know, and we’ll give you a free trial.
Discounts also account for the bottom four spots of the Steam copies sold ranking
Last week was the week of the discounts, with price cuts also dominating the lower half of the ranking.
Puzzle-platformer horror title Little Nightmares II (#7) sold 172 K copies last week thanks to its steepest discount yet (from $30 down to $3).
Our data shows that Little Nightmares II title has seen a Steam sale almost every month since the end of 2022, but never lower than $9.99 – until now:
The $3 sale lasted from June 26 until July 7, helping it shift more copies in that period than its two-week launch period.
While the low price meant revenue per unit is low, the sheer volume made up for it.
Our data shows that Little Nightmares II generated $2.9 million in Steam revenues so far in July – the most it’s generated on Steam since its launch month’s $11.4 million.
The timing of this discount is no coincidence. Little Nightmares III is out in October (like its predecessor, right on time for seasonal spooky game purchases🎃).
The Little Nightmares II discount coincided with the Little Nightmares III showcase, helping spike wishlists for the upcoming title:
Little Nightmares III has now passed 1.6 million wishlists and is on track to do well this October.
Finally, discounts also helped the following games shift another 100 K+ copies on Steam last week:
House Flipper (#8) flipped 140 K copies thanks to its price drop from $25 to $2. Around 8% of House Flipper players have the 2024 sequel wishlisted and are no doubt waiting for a price drop. House Flipper 2’s lowest Steam price so far has been $26.
Besieged (#9) fortified itself with another 139 K copies last week on the back of a -90% discount to $1.50. The physics-based building game is especially popular in China, home to 22% of its players.
Star Wars Battlefront 2 (#10) force-pulled 134 K copies sold last week, owing to its $4 fire sale. The 8-year-old title is thriving on Steam right now, already having amassed 910 K active players this month and peaking at over 35 K concurrent players on June 22. The game’s community has been rallying to get EA and Disney to greenlight a sequel. Fingers crossed!
Other insights, links, and cool stuff
Rhys (that’s me, referring to myself in third person again) was interviewed by the world’s most popular PlayStation podcast. We cover Xbox sales on PlayStation, PlayStation sales on Steam, and Sony and Xbox’s gaming strategy. Warning: slightly spicy takes 🌶️
We’ve updated our website with some new copy and some cool new logos (👀). Check it out here, and feel free to request a demo and trial if you want to see the best games data in the biz in action 😇
Also, we’re PUMPED for gamescom 2025 and would love to meet up to chat about games. Book a meeting. 📅📌Or find Rhys at the bar🍻You can take the man out of Wales…
The last word (but not in an ominous way⚰️)
Reply to this email – or reach out here – if you have any feedback for the newsletter – or want to request a game for us to cover.
[Alinea Analytics boasts the most accurate PC and console estimates in the business. Game makers use our platform to understand their audience, keep an eye on the competition, monitor sales trends, and spot new opportunities. We equip game studios and financial institutions with accurate data and the confidence to make smarter, data-driven decisions. Want to talk about all things games market data? We’d love to chat!]