June 3, 2025 by Rhys Elliott

May’s top Steam games by copies sold: Two new big launches, Helldivers 2’s return, and ongoing indie smash hits

It’s that time again. We already published our May data on Steam’s top new games by revenues, but now it’s time to look at the top-performing Steam games by copies sold.

Let’s get into it.

R.E.P.O reclaimed its #1 position, while Elden Ring Nightreign saw launch success

Co-op horror continues to resonate on Steam, as R.E.P.O took the top spot on Steam by copies sold in May, with 1.7 million. R.E.P.O also took the #1 spot in March but was leapfrogged by Schedule 1 in April (more on Schedule 1 later!)

To date, R.E.P.O has sold 14.4 million copies on Steam overall, generating revenues of $113.6 million. Over a quarter of the game’s players are in the US – its top market, followed by Russia (almost 9%).

Less than 5% of R.E.P.O’s players are in China, as the game does not yet have Chinese localisation**. R.E.P.O is sitting on almost** 3 million Steam users’ wishlists. It will continue to sell well, especially if it drops below its $10 price point and adds Chinese language options.

The #2 game, Elden Ring Nightreign, should come as no surprise to subscribers to the Alinea Insight newsletter, where we flagged it as May’s biggest launch and one to watch based on our prelaunch metrics.

Despite being available for one day in May, Nightreign managed to sell 1.2 million copies on Steam and gross revenues of $48.5 million. The game has to date sold 3.5 million across all platforms, with 1.7 million on Steam.

Around 80% of Nightreign’s Steam players and 85% of its PS5 players also played the original Elden Ring. Yet, Nightreign’s had a mixed critical reception and some corners of the Souls community have been frustrated at its repetition, so its long-term success and retention remain uncertain.

We’ve all heard of Black Myth: Wukong, but another China-focused souls-like is flying under many people’s radar and is poised to be a BIG hit this summer. Read more about that here.

Three games from April’s top 5 held strong in May

While single-player games often find most of their sales in their launch month, they often keep selling on Steam. May was no different, with the following games all remaining in the ranking:

• Expedition 33 (#3) actually sold more copies on Steam in May (another million!) than it did in its launch month, thanks to the game’s word-of-mouth snowballing. Turn-based RPGs aren’t dead! Expedition 33 has now sold a total of 1.8 million copies on Steam, grossing revenues of almost $69 million. The US and Japan account for just under half of players.

• Schedule 1 (#4) sold just shy of a million copies in May, bringing its total to 8.2 million (revenues exceeding $126 million). The drug-dealing sim’s DAUs are still dropping, but it still draws in 200K people a day, down from a peak of 1.7 million at the beginning of April.

• Oblivion Remastered (#5) sold another 585K copies on Steam in May, helping the classic RPG remake cross the coveted 2-million-sold mark on the platform (and $84 million in revenues overall). A price drop from $50 to $40 at the end of the month helped Oblivion stay in the top 5. Sitting on 1.8 million wishlists, Oblivion will sell more as Bethesda continues to tinker with the price.

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Helldivers 2 had its best month on Steam by DAUs since early 2024

Helldivers 2 was May’s #5 Steam game by copies sold, selling another 537K copies – the most it’s sold on the platform since April 2024. Let’s div … sigh … jump in.

Helldivers 2 was 2024’s breakout hit, and has now sold 11.8 million copies on Steam alone overall, generating revenues of $370 million. Helldivers 2 has been a huge hit for Sony – its biggest PC success to date and one of its biggest games ever. We don’t talk about Concord…

Anyway, there are two main reasons for Helldivers 2 spike in May 2025:

• The launch of the Heart of Democracy free expansion, the game’s biggest update to date. It introduces new mission types and a huge city biome on Super Earth

• A price drop to $32 (from $40) a few days after the expansion’s launch

Helldivers 2 also saw Steam MAUs of 3.7 million in May, its highest since May 2024. But what about DAUs? Well, the Alinea platform has that too.

Want to see all our data in action? We’ll show you!

The chart below shows a time series for Helldivers 2’s Steam DAUs since launch, with the yellow line charting the game’s intermittent price drops to $32:

As you can see, the free Heart of Democracy update period was the biggest driver of DAUs, helping Helldivers 2 hit surpass a million DAUs on May 29^th^ – for the first time in over a year.

The price drop also contributed, but – as you can see above – similar week-long price drops to $32 in the past had an impact on sales, but not this much.

The price drop, combined with the hype of the expansion, got Helldivers 2 excitement flowing among new and returning players alike.

While subject to the natural attrition curve for premium games, Helldivers 2’s developers have successfully utilized strategic, temporary price reductions ($32) timed precisely with major content updates and events to generate multiple massive resurgences in player engagement.

The data clearly shows that price is a significant lever for this title, maximized when coupled with compelling new reasons to play.

Maintaining this strategy of coupling discounts with high-quality content releases is key to the game’s continued success – and ongoing players’ satisfaction – on Steam.

And with almost 5 million wishlists on Steam, it’s just a matter of time before Arrowhead discounts Helldivers 2 below $30 – or even $20, eventually – to attract even more players to their hit game.

A big discount and a cozy new release account for #7 and #8

V Rising (#7) sold 446K copies on Steam in May 2025. The survival RPG launched in early access on Steam in May 2022 before launching in earnest two years later.

Since its early access inception, V Rising has had a huge update drop in May. 2025 was no different, with Invaders of Oakveil, the game’s first big post-1.0 update.

The update coincided with a half-price discount from $35 to $17, its lowest price point since the pre-early-access period. This led to V Rising passing the 5-million-copies sold mark on Steam, where it has generated revenues of over $90 million overall.

Almost 7% of V Rising players have wishlisted Hades 2, so many fans are likely looking forward to more demonic slaying later this year.

Apart from Nightreign, FANTASY LIFE i: The Girl Who Steals Time (#8) was the only new game in the top 10, selling 429K copies on Steam.

The RPG life sim is a long-awaited sequel to the 3DS cult classic, expanding on its predecessor’s blend of cozy simulation vibes and action-RPG combat.

Almost half of FANTASY LIFE’s players are based in China. Again, this shows the benefit – no, the need – for data providers to include Chinese market data. Alinea has this data. Reach out here to see it in action.

The game is very Asia-focused, with Japan being the #3 market for FANTASY LIFE on Steam (and #1 on PlayStation). It’s also selling well on console (excluding Xbox, sadly) and has to date sold over 800K copies. It’ll likely pass a million sold this month.

Perhaps unsurprisingly, 70% of FANTASY LIFE players on Steam have also played Stardew Valley, which has now sold an astronomical 30 million copies on Steam alone.

Nostalgia rounds off the top 10 with two classic shooter franchises

Black Mesa – a fan-made remake of Half-Life – took the #9 spot with 384K copies sold. Crowbar Collective dropped a surprise update to the remake 10 years after its launch, fixing performance issues and reducing the price to $2 (its biggest-ever discount on Steam).

Black Mesa has sold almost 3.5 million copies on Steam to date (11% via Russia), with revenues of $42 million. Even Half-Life Alyx, a VR game, has sold over 2 million on Steam (revenues of $86.4 million).

If a fan remake of Half-Life and a VR game – an amazing one, albeit – can sell this well, can you imagine how the rumoured next instalment of the franchise will do? We don’t want to jinx it…

Finally, Battlefield 1 took the #10 spot by copies sold on Steam in May, with 355K. EA dropped the France-focused Battlefield 1 They Shall Not Pass expansion pack for free in the first two weeks of May, coinciding with a price drop to just $2.

Since the start of 2025, EA has dropped Battlefield 1’s price to $2 (from the RRP of $40) every 1.5 months. It typically results in the title each when this happens, including in March, when it sold over 700K copies (March’s #7 game!).

Intermittent discounts are a great way to ‘‘game’’ Steam’s top sellers list and get more discoverability late in a game’s product lifecycle. It’s why we’re talking about it right now, after all! We expect to see even more promotions like this ahead of the next Battlefield release in EA’s fiscal 2026.

That’s it for Steam’s top May top 10. Keep your eyes peeled for the PlayStation ranking. Or better yet, get it – and all our content – delivered to your inbox by subscribing to the Alinea Insight newsletter!

Want to see our data for yourself in a demo or free trial? Let us know!