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Valheim, Halo Infinite, and New World feature in Steam's Best of 2021 list

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By Vikki Blake published 29 December 2021

Find out what games top Steam's Top Sellers, Top New Releases, and Most Played Games lists this year

When you purchase through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission. Here’s how it works.

Valheim
(Image credit: Iron Gate)
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As we approach the end of another year, Steam is back with its Best of 2021 rundown to give us a peek into the PC games that made the biggest splash in 2021. 

Detailing Steam's Top Sellers, Top New Releases, Most Played Games, Top Early Access Graduates, Top Selling VR Games, and Top Controller Games for 2021, Steam's Best of 2021 charts performance from January 1, 2021, to December 15, 2021.

For those wondering, while Valve won't "divulge revenue specifics for the games on these lists", it does categorize and randomly sort them into Platinum (1st - 12th), Gold (13th - 24th), Silver (25th - 40th), and Bronze (41st - 100th) sections "to give an idea of how they stack up".

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This year, Dead by Daylight, Valheim, and New World join games like Battlefield 2042, Dota 2, and Destiny 2 as Steam's top-grossing games, as well as Naraka Bladepoint, Rainbow Six Siege, PUBG Battlegrounds, Apex Legends, CS:GO, and GTA 5 (of course).

The Most Played games are organized by peak concurrent player count and "grouped into thresholds based on the number of players", and this year include Valheim, New World, Dota 2, Rust, CS:GO, Halo Infinite, Apex Legends, PUBG, Cyberpunk 2077, and GTA 5. All have secured a peak of over 200,000 concurrent players.

Halo Infinite, Valheim, Mass Effect Legendary Edition, and Farming Simulator 22 are amongst the year's biggest new releases.

For the full rundown of all the details, head on over to Steam.

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By submitting your information you agree to the Terms & Conditions and Privacy Policy and are aged 16 or over.

ICYMI, it seems that more of us completed Resident Evil Village than any other game this year.

That's according to the community at HowLongToBeat.com, the website that tracks how long it takes the average gamer to complete a game, be that the main story campaign, the main missions and side quests, or complete the game entirely. 

So while not scientifically accurate, of course, the survey gives a flavor of what games we all were super keen to get to the end of this year – and according to that site's users, the most-completed game of 2021 is Ethan Winters' visit to Resident Evil Village.

Metroid Dread is the runner-up to the title, while the other games keeping us glued to the end of this year are Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart, It Takes Two, Super Mario 3D World + Bowser's Fury, 12 Minutes, Psychonauts 2, Nier Replicant ver.122474487139..., The Medium, and, Little Nightmares 2 respectively.

Looking for something new to get stuck into? Here are the best PC games right now.

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Weekend Reporter, GamesRadar+

Vikki Blake is GamesRadar+'s Weekend Reporter. Vikki works tirelessly to ensure that you have something to read on the days of the week beginning with 'S', and can also be found contributing to outlets including the BBC, Eurogamer, and GameIndustry.biz. Vikki also runs a weekly games column at NME, and can be frequently found talking about Destiny 2 and Silent Hill on Twitter. 

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