The Colonel Sanders dating sim was one of Steam's biggest releases for September

(Image credit: KFC)

With September now a few weeks behind us, Valve has compiled a list of the 20 biggest new games of that month. As always, because it doesn't provide actual sales figures, the list is chronological, but Valve, being Valve, doesn't send these things out without a few interesting bits of trivia for background.

Eight of the games in the list are either entering or leave Early Access, demonstrating that it "continues to be a unique and valuable option for creating a product with involvement and feedback from the community," and nine of them— Green Hell, Gears 5, Session, Ni no Kuni, Crying Suns, Noita, Flotsam, Cube World and Maelstrom—are from developers launching games on Steam for the first time, although it's maybe a little disingenuous to lump Gears 5 and Ni No Kumi together with games like Crying Suns and Noita, .

18 of the games on the list also support controllers, and that led Valve—again, being Valve—to look into how many people are actually using them.

"In measuring the number of controller sessions for games released in September, we were quite excited with the level of engagement. As some may have expected, Pro Evolution Soccer, NBA2K, and Code Vein are incredibly popular with controllers—all three landed in the top 10 most controller sessions for September across the entire Steam catalog," Valve explained. 

"It makes sense for those games to see controller use, but other releases from a variety of genres also saw significant controller engagement—Session, River City Girls, Ni no Kuni, Blasphemous, Spyro, Surge 2 and Final Fantasy VIII all registered more than half of their September game sessions from players with controllers."

And now, the list:

  • Spyro Reignited Trilogy
  • Children of Morta
  • Final Fantasy 8 Remastered
  • NBA 2K20
  • River City Girls
  • Green Hell
  • Gears 5
  • Greedfall
  • eFootball PES 2020
  • Blasphemous
  • Session
  • AI: The Somnium Files
  • Ni No Kuni: Wrath of the White Witch Remastered
  • Crying Suns
  • Hot Lava
  • The Surge 2
  • Noita
  • Code Vein
  • Flotsam
  • Cube World

And the top five free releases for the month, which includes the sexy, sweaty Chicken Man:

  • I Love You, Colonel Sanders
  • Territory Ilde
  • Planetside Arena
  • Firestone
  • Maelstrom

If you'd like to take a closer look at any of these games and maybe throw some money at them, Valve has collected them all together in a convenient Steam store page.

Andy Chalk

Andy has been gaming on PCs from the very beginning, starting as a youngster with text adventures and primitive action games on a cassette-based TRS80. From there he graduated to the glory days of Sierra Online adventures and Microprose sims, ran a local BBS, learned how to build PCs, and developed a longstanding love of RPGs, immersive sims, and shooters. He began writing videogame news in 2007 for The Escapist and somehow managed to avoid getting fired until 2014, when he joined the storied ranks of PC Gamer. He covers all aspects of the industry, from new game announcements and patch notes to legal disputes, Twitch beefs, esports, and Henry Cavill. Lots of Henry Cavill.