Two games developed by Russian-speaking studios made it into the top 10 releases of January, being the month's leaders in revenue and sales

Although January was quiet in terms of major releases, it was still memorable due to several hits. Most of these were projects by independent studios, combining mechanics from simulators and other popular genres on Steam. Their revenue, sales, and other metrics are covered in our traditional section.

Games discussed in this article:

• Revenue, sales, and other metrics of January's main novelties: Quarantine Zone, StarRupture, Half Sword, and Code Vein II;
• Data on other successful new releases of the month, including from indie studios: Cairn, Pathologic 3, LORT, School Days, and more;
• The most anticipated February releases by wishlist count: Resident Evil Requiem, Reanimal, Mewgenics, Rogue Point, YAPYAP, and others.

To assess sales, revenue, and other metrics, we traditionally relied not only on official data from developers and publishers but also on information from third-party sources. These include Steam charts, as well as data from analytical companies like VG Insights, Gamalytic, and Alinea Analytics. All figures mentioned in the article cover the period from the release date of a particular game until January 31, 2026.

In January 2026, 1,423 new games appeared on Steam. Of these, 284 were projects with profile features enabled (cards, badges, etc.), which surpassed a certain minimum threshold for revenue and user numbers.

The gross revenue of 64 new releases exceeded $100,000, and eight titles—excluding two Early Access projects that reached the 1.0 release—earned over a million dollars by the end of January.

Additionally, of all the new releases, 166 received 100 reviews or more, and 32 games surpassed the 1,000 reviews mark. Since calculating the revenue of free-to-play projects is quite challenging, we will focus on premium releases.