In a nutshell: After Spotify’s Recap gave us a glimpse into our listening habits, Steam’s own recap is here to unravel our gaming patterns over the past year. This year’s data dump has been renamed from 2023’s “Year In Review” back to the good old “Steam Replay” – and it tells a rather nostalgic tale.
While shiny new releases grabbed headlines in 2024, it was the older titles that truly dominated our playtime. A whopping 37% of total gaming hours on Steam went to titles released eight or more years ago. However, the lion’s share went to the “modern classics” from the last 1-7 years which took up an even chunkier 47% share.
Interestingly, Cutting-edge 2024 releases accounted for just 15% of playtime. Why, you may ask? The answer is more complicated than the entirety of Steam’s player base simply being too old to enjoy the latest and greatest titles. In fact, as pointed out by PC Gamer, this is a pattern we’ve seen over the past few years; the latest figure is actually lower than the 17% mark set in 2022, though it’s up from the 9% seen in 2023.
The real answer is the extended lifespans of big names like Counter-Strike, Dota 2, and PUBG skewing the numbers. The trio continues to occupy the top three spots by the number of current players. That’s not to say there aren’t some legit new hit games, though.
For instance, Path of Exile 2 and Marvel Rivals were both released this year and are occupying the fourth and fifth spots on the same list.
The co-op shooter Helldivers 2, NovaLogic’s revived Delta Force, and the popular free-to-play Banana have all posted impressive numbers, too. Meanwhile, on the single-player side, the Chinese mythology-inspired action/adventure Black Myth: Wukong has sold over 10 million units to date.
Still, when it comes to our cumulative gaming habits, it’s clear that the old reliables reign supreme.
Another factor is the sheer number of older titles on Steam. With over 200,000 games created over a decade ago on the platform, compared to just 18,000 fresh 2024 releases, we PC gamers have an endless backlog of classic hits to revisit and reminisce over.