The year 2025 was anything but a bad year for gamers. However, the year-in-review from Steam reveals: Players mainly played older games again this year.
How do we know this? This information comes from the Steam year-in-review 2025. It is personalized – each account on Steam gets a very personal year-in-review. However, there are also some exciting statistics that provide insights into the gaming behavior of other gamers on Steam.
Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 is for many the game of the year 2025 and is so good that it leaves them with a feeling of emptiness:
Despite new hits, old games dominate
This is shown by the Steam year-in-review 2025:
- Most of the time (44%) Steam users spent in games released in the last 1 to 7 years
- Almost as much time (40%) players invested in games that were released 8 or more years ago
- New releases – meaning games released in 2025 – make up only 14% of Steam users’ playtime
This means, in short, that the Steam community also played primarily older games in 2025.
Many great games were released this year: One of them is of course Clair Obscur: Expedition 33, which won multiple awards at the Game Awards. The long-awaited Hollow Knight: Silksong finally released in 2025 – and turned out to be really good.
Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2 is also an outstanding medieval RPG that was released in 2025 and, according to Twitch streamer HandofBlood, was completely overlooked at the Game Awards.
With ARC Raiders, a new extraction shooter has recently been released that even competes with Battlefield 6 – yet the new Battlefield itself is for many fans one of the best of the last years. And with Where Winds Meet, even a free RPG hit from China was released.
What was the reason?
There was no shortage of good games in 2025. So what is the reason that old games still take up so much space? In a Reddit post, these results are already being discussed, but one isn’t surprised:
- “Kinda expected when most consistently top played steam games is the like of CS2, DOTA2 or PUBG,” says user rickreckt on Reddit.
- “Well yeah, there’s a lot more old games than new games,” points out another Reddit user, another adds: “And older games are constantly on sale/available for cheaper than new releases.” (on Reddit)
If you haven’t seen your personal Steam year-in-review 2025 yet: You can find it in the Steam store. At the top, there’s a banner that will take you directly to your year-in-review. Alternatively, you can also find it through your profile.
Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 not only won numerous awards at the Game Awards but also announced new content. This is free for all owners of the game, but it leaves even the toughest players in despair. You can read more about it in this article: Expedition 33 gives players new bosses, pushes the difficulty to the limit, and leaves everyone in despair
