2025 feels like a bit of a tipping point for gaming. As bigger studios continue tocancel projects and lay off talented developers, or see theirtrend-chasing games fail, smaller games have come to the limelight. Indie titles likeSchedule 1,R.E.P.O., andPeakhave all garnered massive audiences, while games from smaller studios, such asClair Obscur: Expedition 33, have achieved critical acclaim,breaking multiple records in the process.
With player and development habits shifting, as 2025 reaches its halfway point, we’ve looked at the games with the highest player counts onSteam, and have found that 40 percent of the top 20 are either indie or double-A.
Players Are Seemingly Yearning For Smaller Titles, Supporting Indies And Smaller Studios In The Process
According to our data (pulled fromSteamDB), eight of this year’s top 20 games, sorted by peak concurrent player count, have come from indie studios or can be classified as “double-A”.
In the TikTok and short-form video era, a trend has emerged of smaller, more clippable games going viral, which has undoubtedly contributed to this year’s charts. We saw it previously with games like Content Warning and Chained Together, and that trend has continued this year, with Schedule I and R.E.P.O. occupying two of the top three spots, and Peak falling just outside the top ten. While these games typically have a shorter shelf-life, as they’re quickly replaced by the next viral hit, they’re very much the definition of indie.
Idle game Bongo Cat took the sixth spot this year, and a title with “Overwhelmingly Positive” Steam reviews,Sultan’s Game, came in at 19th.
WhileKingdom Come: Deliverance 2, Clair Obscur: Expedition 33, andRematchall had slightly larger scopes, budgets, publishers and teams, all three games fall into the smaller double-A category, taking the fifth, ninth, and 14th spots, respectively. These eight games make up 40 percent of Steam’s top 20 concurrent player counts from titles released this year.
1
1,384,608
2
459,798
3
271,571
4
259,003
5
256,206
6
194,508
7
192,078
8
189,333
9
145,063
10
132,816
11
114,492
12
113,946
13
109,246
14
92,841
15
87,377
16
65,389
17
64,825
18
52,501
19
46,106
20
Persona5: The Phantom X
41,622
Surprising nobody,Monster Hunter Wildsholds down the top spot, and that’s unlikely to be beaten.Split Fiction, another game from a smaller studio (but funded by EA), is in fourth, andStellar Blade,Dune: Awakening, andMecha Breakround out the top ten.
Games likeDoom: The Dark AgesandLike A Dragon: Pirate Yakuzain Hawaii missed out on the top 20, as did the Steam releases ofFinal Fantasy 7 Rebirth,The Last of Us Part 2: Remastered, andMarvel’s Spider-Man 2.
