Steam's June best sellers list includes a thirsty waifu sim and zombie hordes

Valve has published the top Steam releases for June 2019, along with some insights, and as usual it's a diverse gaggle. There's gloomy shooters, cooking sims, thirsty dating games and boring old sports.

While it seems impossibly hard to get noticed on Steam, half of the games on the list come from teams releasing their first Steam game, either because they've previously only release on other platforms, or because they're new teams. These include Barotrauma, My Friend Pedro and Super Neptunia.

Quite a few of them have either just left or launched in Early Access, which Valve reckons is a testament to the interest in that kind of game development model. I reckon it's inevitable when so many games launch early, however, rather than evidence that people happily gobble up Early Access games.

Here's the list of June's best sellers, in order of release date:

Trover Saves the Universe - June 4
Barotrauma - June 5
Hell Let Loose - June 6
Cooking Simulator - June 6
Octopath Traveler - June 7
Koikatsu Party - June 10
SpaceEngine - June 11
They Are Billions - June 18
Police Simulator: Patrol Duty - June 18
Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night - June 18
Amid Evil - June 20
Steel Division 2 - June 20
My Friend Pedro - June 20
Muse Dash - June 20
Super Neptunia RPG - June 20
Ring of Elysium - June 24
Hardcore Mecha - June 26
F1 2019 - June 27
Pro Cycling Manager 2019 - June 27
Nine Trials - June 28

This makes me feel like I've got some catching up to do, as I've played maybe three of the games on this list. I might skip Koikatsu Party, where you build an anime lady and then pester them. Big fan of this review, though:

Starting with June, Valve's also publishing the top five free-to-play games, measured by peak player count within the first fortnight after release. The list includes a mobile strategy port and, of course Dota Underlords. The latter had a strong launch, with more than 200,000 people playing concurrently, though most of them haven't returned. It still gets around 80,000 concurrent players a day, however.

Lords Mobile - June 3
Wasteland Survival - June 3
Dota Underlords - June 20
Ring of Elysium - June 24
Black Squad - June 26

Valve also took a look at what the top games were in June last year. The top five Steam, games in June 2018 were Vampyr, Warhammer 40,000: Inquisitor, Jurassic World Evolution, Crash Bandicoot N. San Trilogy and The Crew 2.

Got any personal favourites from last month?

Fraser is the UK online editor and has actually met The Internet in person. With over a decade of experience, he's been around the block a few times, serving as a freelancer, news editor and prolific reviewer. Strategy games have been a 30-year-long obsession, from tiny RTSs to sprawling political sims, and he never turns down the chance to rave about Total War or Crusader Kings. He's also been known to set up shop in the latest MMO and likes to wind down with an endlessly deep, systemic RPG. These days, when he's not editing, he can usually be found writing features that are 1,000 words too long or talking about his dog.