Steam generated $1.7 billion in September 2026, the platform’s best September to date, up 13% on the previous record, September of last year.
Steam also had its best-ever Q3, generating $5.5B (up 12% on last year). That brings the 2026 total to $16.5B so far, a 13% increase from the $14.5B Steam made in the first nine months of 2025. Given the insane release slate for the rest of the year, it’s safe to say Steam’s yearly revenue will blow past $20B for the first time.
Of the top 500 top-grossing games on Steam last month – accounting for about three-quarters of September’s revenue – our estimates show that:
New 2026 IP accounted for 20.5% of the revenue
About 79.5% of the revenue came from established IP, including 3.8% from remakes and remasters
Games released in 2026 drove 33.6% of the revenue, with 2025 releases adding 8.7% and 2024 releases 9.3%
Free-to-play games accounted for 25.6% of revenue generated by the top 500 (despite making up 16% of the titles), with premium making up the rest.
On the free-to-play side, Counter-Strike 2, Apex Legends, PUBG, and Dota 2 generated almost $168M on Steam combined, nearly 10% of Steam’s entire revenue for the month.
However, a new premium game beat all those (and also makes up a decent chunk of the new-2026-IP revenue). Let’s take a gander at the premium games that made the most on Steam last month, in what was a very busy one.
Three new September releases, and two new IP, take the top three
Looking at September’s top three premium games by revenue on Steam:
Wardogs, which we covered a couple of weeks ago, generated $86.9M last month after releasing in early access on September 10. The hit PvP shooter has now generated over $100M on Steam via 3.2M copies sold, thanks to its impressive pre-launch, pre-September revenues. While Wardogs was initially outpacing Arc Raiders‘ and Helldivers 2’s Steam revenue, those games’ hype cycles and virality lasted longer. By this point, Helldivers 2 had made $130M (26.5% more than Wardogs) on Steam, while Arc Raiders had made about $125M (21.2% more). But Wardogs is in early access and already has a solid foundation to build on. It’s still bringing in about 250K players a day. Wardogs alone is about a third of September’s new-2026-IP revenue on Steam.
Onimusha: Way of the Sword made $30.4M on Steam in September (and $33.7M on Steam overall) since its September 4 launch. The Steam version has now sold almost 576K copies, continuing Capcom’s incredible 2026 run on Valve’s platform (and generational run overall). On PlayStation, where the franchise has its roots, Onimusha has sold through (so no unsold retail copies) about 835K, and under 50K on Xbox. However, Onimusha‘s #1 country by Steam players is China, accounting for over a third. So Steam offers Capcom a means to reach a lucrative audience that console can’t. The demo did the trick too, as 30% of players who played it went on to buy the full game.
The Blood of Dawnwalker, which launched a day before Onimusha, made $26.9M last month on Steam. Thanks to pre-launch sales, Dawnwalker has now generated $30.6M on Steam. While Steam is Dawnwalker‘s top platform by copies sold (over 535K), it’s actually #2 by revenue, as the PS5 version has generated over $40M now. This is down to regional pricing and there being more console players in higher-priced markets. There’s a lot of Polish pride here, too (Poland is Dawnwalker‘s #2 market on Steam and #3 on PlayStation). This is a banging performance for a new single-player IP, and it makes sense given the game’s quality (and the calibre of its ex-CDPR team).
Speaking of which: quick interlude!
A TONNE of people returned to The Witcher 3 yesterday
Before continuing, we just wanted to highlight that The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt Remastered, a free upgrade that adds an impressive amount of technical, gameplay, and quality-of-life improvements to the 11-year-old banger, has seen some impressive early numbers.
Our platform DAU data shows that the remaster, which launched yesterday and is free for any current Witcher 3 owners, spiked to about 2.4M DAUs across Steam (48.6%), PlayStation (40.4%), and Xbox (11.0%) yesterday. That’s over 10X its average DAU number for this year (which is already impressive to be fair, and a testament to the game’s evergreen legacy).
Perhaps even more impressively, The Witcher 3 sold another 130K copies across those three platforms yesterday, the most it’s sold in a day since The Witcher 3‘s first $3.99 Steam discount price back in summer 2024. It’s currently on sale for $24.99 across all three platforms covered.
The Witcher 3 has sold over 66M copies so far. What a run. Roll on, Songs of the Past DLC.
Anyway, back to the ranking!
A mixed bag rounds out the ranking
As for the rest of September’s ranking for premium games on Steam (by revenue), we’ve got a nice varied list:
Bodycam, a realistic PvP shooter that simulates footage from body-worn police and military cameras, managed an extra $24.2M last month. The title launched in early access in 2024, but just had a huge “Locked & Loaded” 0.8 update, which added a bunch of depth, progression, and polish, bringing Bodycam more in line with the developers’ original vision. This was obviously the update plenty of folks were waiting for, as September 2026 was Bodycam‘s best month yet, beating even the $16M it generated in its early-access launch month. Bodycam has now passed $77M in revenue via 3.2M copies sold.
FC 27 generated $20.7M via copies sold on Steam last month. That’s actually a little lower than FC 26 was at the same point (launch-aligned), which makes sense given the intense competition on Steam right now. And FC 27, as always, finds most of its players in the more casual console ecosystem. In fact, it’s already generated over $500M via console copies alone, with $410M on PlayStation and $85M via Xbox. It’s sold 6.5M copies in under two weeks since its early access launch. On console, FC 27 is trending above FC 26, likely a result of the summer’s World Cup fever and growing football (sigh... soccer) fandom in the US. Despite having only just released, FC 27 has sold more than this year’s NBA and Madden games combined. The world’s game, indeed.
How to Fish continues to reel in friendslop success, with $19.3M generated last month. In total, the $7.99 viral game has now generated over $50M via its now 10.1M copies sold overall. How to Fish launched in late August, but it’s still wading in about 40K-50K copies a day. We’ll no doubt see another friendslop hit or two before the end of the year. There’s also a cohort of players who play multiple friendslop games in a given month: of September’s How to Fish players, about 9% also played Peak in September, while 8% played Gamble with Your Friends.
Control Resonant, which launched on September 24, generated $12.7M in under a week on Steam. In total, it’s made nearly $15M on Steam via almost 300K copies sold on Valve’s platform. Around 41% of Control Resonant‘s Steam players have played the original Control. While that’s lower than you might expect, Control‘s one-year Epic Games Store exclusivity is contributing. Steam players are absolutely loving this one, as Control Resonant currently has a 90% positive user review score, and over half of players have played for over 10 hours (and 25% over 20 hours!).
Also, you should play Control Resonant. It’s rad. Alright, time to wrap up and join that 20h+ club myself.
So there you have it: a mixed bag of games absolutely smashing it in September. But we’ve got another quarter to go this year, and it’s a big one.
It’s going to be another busy few months, so hit subscribe below to get the Alinea estimates and insights in your inbox when they’re ready!
Cool links and other stuff
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It’s been another busy press week, with IGN covering our Resident Evil data, GameSpot and Push Square covering our Gears insights, and GamesIndustry.biz referencing our indie data.
We were also featured in this week’s New York Times article on Xbox CEO Asha Sharma.
The last word
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