Following up on the look at the game engines used in 2020’s most popular Steam titles, this is the game engines used in the most popular titles published in 2021. Please note, this is not my work, but instead was compiled by justkevin on Reddit. It is an interesting look at the game engines behind the most popular titles published last year on Steam.
Now the term “most popular” is a loaded one, so here is how it is defined:
Below is the list for this year, as based on the Steam 250 ranking. The Steam 250 algorithm is a combination of percent positive reviews and number of reviews. For example a game with 99% positive out of 1000 reviews might rank higher than a game with 95% positive out of 15,000 reviews. Whether it is actually more popular is somewhat of a subjective opinion– perhaps “beloved” might be a better descriptor.
In terms of summary of results, it breaks down as follows:
- Unity: 25
- Unreal: 6
- Game Maker: 4
- RPG Maker: 2
- Custom: 9
- Other: 4
Interestingly, this is the first time that the Godot game engine has made an appear on the list, with the 22nd ranked Cruel Squad. If you are interested in additional game engine and framework details on Steam beyond 2021’s most popular games, be sure to check out SteamDB.
You can learn more about the game engines used on the 50 most popular Steam games published in 2021 in the video below.