I remember the days when people would loudly declare “Single-player games are dead” and, thankfully, this has not come to pass. I touched on this well over a year ago when I compared the most popular games on Steam with the most popular games on the Steam Deck and found that single-player games were thriving on the handheld. As part of their Spring Sale, Valve have released a list of the top 100 games on the Steam Deck from March 2023 to March 2024 in order of highest daily active player count. While I certainly won’t be going through the entire list within this article, I thought it might be interesting to take a look at the top played games on the Steam Deck last year, discuss some that stand out to me for one reason or another and why this list signals that single-player games have a long, healthy and prosperous future awaiting.
Let’s start with which games from this list that I’ve played on my Steam Deck within the past year, thus contributing to their ranking. Working from the bottom up, the first game from these top 100 that I played on my Steam Deck within the last year is Middle-Earth: Shadow of War. I had enjoyed the first game enough that, already owning the second due to Humble Bundle, I decided to give it a chance. I didn’t really feel like it did enough to distinguish itself from the original and, while certainly enjoyable in a braindead manner, I was more than ready for the end when I finally finished the game. I’d played Monster Hunter Rise before March of last year but I picked up the Sunbreak DLC this year and played through that recently. It was nice to return to Monster Hunter but I will say that I thought there was a bit too much repetition of monsters from the base game throughout although particularly at the beginning. Finally, the only other one I played on the Steam Deck in the past year was Vampire Survivors. I knew of this game for a long time but I got it as part of a charity bundle on Fanatical and decided that I should give it a shot. It has proven to be a surprisingly addictive experience and I love how the achievements continually unlock more and more content.
As for the list itself, something that stands out to me are the number of single-player titles that are present. Looking at the top 22 for instance, since I have it visible above, I only see a few games that I would consider to be multiplayer focused titles with the rest being purely single-player games or single-player games with multiplayer elements. Looking through the rest of the list, I see the occasional multiplayer games such as Dead by Daylight or Counter-Strike 2 but, if I had to guess, I would say that the list is comfortably 2/3 single-player games.
Now, some of you might be asking what this means and whether it’s of any importance. In and of itself, I would say that this list is relatively minor compared to many other aspects of the video game industry. As successful as the Steam Deck has been, it’s been restricted by the lack of availability on other storefronts and the limited number of countries it can be shipped to. The fact that it has managed to sell “multiple millions” of units with these limitations is highly commendable but these numbers still pale compared to the console, PC and mobile markets. However, I do believe that it’s indicative of the greater market and the demand for single-player games with the games listed above all being very popular commercially on the majority of platforms they’re released on.
The fact that these single-player games are continuing to be so successful is incredibly important as we are continuing to see publishers and developers push the idea that live service and multiplayer games are the only way forward, something I would strongly disagree with. Seeing further evidence, alongside all of the evidence we’ve already seen, that single-player games are thriving is always heartwarming. This is a fine list of titles that I find both expected and surprising and, as someone who greatly enjoys the convenience that the Steam Deck offers, I look forward to seeing how this list changes in the future when, hopefully, the Steam Deck becomes more widely available.
Let me know your thoughts on this look at the top played games on Steam Deck last year, which games you’ve played from this list, whether you own a Steam Deck, what you think about the ratio of single-player to multiplayer games and any additional information you might have on the topic.
Thanks for reading and if you wish to seek any of the titles I mentioned, don’t hesitate to use amazon.co.uk or amazon.com for all of your needs! Also feel free to follow my curator page on Steam “JRPG Reviews” for thoughts and opinions on any JRPGs that I play and my YouTube channel “Victory Achieved Gaming” where I guide my friend through challenging games.