Steam's top 20 new releases in October include Destiny 2 and Postal 4

With November's halfway point now well behind us, Valve has released its list of the top 20 new game releases for October. Some of them, like Destiny 2 and Disco Elysium, won't surprise anyone; but others, well, they might.

The list is based on revenue generation over the first two weeks, which is why these rundowns never appear until a few weeks after the end of the month: Games released at the end of the month still need their two weeks to ring up the revenues, after all. And they are ranked chronologically, not by revenue, so there's no "winner" here, although it's probably safe to assume that Destiny 2 pulled in more bucks than, say, Postal 4: No Regerts.

And yes, Postal 4 is on the list, with a peak player count of 806, according to Steam Charts, which puts it just behind Chernobylite, which managed 809. That's not directly correlated to the revenues-based ranking, since different games have different prices, but it does underscore that a game doesn't have to be a hit (or, you know, good) to make the top 20.

Because it's Valve, simply listing the games isn't sufficient, so for October it dug into how many people are playing more than one game on the list. Unsurprisingly, Destiny 2 has huge overlap—nearly 20 percent of Steam users who played other games on this month's list also play Destiny 2—but there's community crossover beyond that obvious mega-hit.

"While the numbers are not as high, the overlap in people playing more than one game from the Top Releases list presents some interesting correlations worth highlighting. For example, we found a lot of players enjoying both Atelier Ryza & Indivisible, which are both anime RPGs featuring turn-based combat and female protagonists," Valve explained.

"We found similar overlap in players across We Were Here Together and Trine 4, which both incorporate heavy use of puzzles with an emphasis on cooperative gameplay. Crossroads Inn & Autonauts have very different themes, but both games utilize building and simulation."

Here's the full list:

Destiny 2
Indivisible
Trine 4: The Nightmare Prince
Doraemon Story of Seasons
Mistover
GRID
Pine
We Were Here Together
Postal 4: No Regerts
Chernobylite
Disco Elysium
The Jackbox Party Pack 6
ArcheAge: Unchained
Autonauts
Digimon Story Cyber Sleuth: Complete Edition
WWE 2K20
Crossroads Inn
Richman10
Secret Neighbor
Atelier Ryza: Ever Darkness and the Secret Hideout

And here are the top six free releases for October, because they make money too.

Destiny 2
NGU Idle
Breeders of the Nephelym
The Walking Zombie 2
Legend of the Keepers: Prologue
War Selection

All of October's top new releases are available in this handy Steam sale page.

Update: The top free releases section originally listed only five games, but was meant to have six, including NGU Idle (and now does).

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Andy has been gaming on PCs from the very beginning, starting as a youngster with text adventures and primitive action games on a cassette-based TRS80. From there he graduated to the glory days of Sierra Online adventures and Microprose sims, ran a local BBS, learned how to build PCs, and developed a longstanding love of RPGs, immersive sims, and shooters. He began writing videogame news in 2007 for The Escapist and somehow managed to avoid getting fired until 2014, when he joined the storied ranks of PC Gamer. He covers all aspects of the industry, from new game announcements and patch notes to legal disputes, Twitch beefs, esports, and Henry Cavill. Lots of Henry Cavill.