Epic Games Storehas revealed the top 20 most anticipated 2023 games among its ever-growing user base, in addition to disclosing a wide variety of commercial milestones it recently managed to hit as part of its latest Year in Review report. This insight into theFortnitemaker’s digital storefront arrived just asEpic threw shade at Steam by launching a new self-publishing toolfor game developers, continuing its fierce rivalry with Valve.
Introduced in December 2018, Epic Games Store didn’t take long to position itself as Steam’s biggest rival, swiftly overtaking the likes of Origin and Uplay, which nowadays go by EA Play and Ubisoft Connect, respectively. It’s no coincidence that the timing of the platform’s debut coincided with the global success ofFortnite; the early billions generated by the battle royale hit financed a wide variety of exclusive deals with developers and aconsistent influx of free Epic Games Store titlesthat continue to be a key growth driver for the storefront to this day.
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As part of its latest Year in Review report, the North Carolina-based company has now revealed an unordered list of the top 20 most anticipated 2023 games among its users. About half of the highlighted titles are AAA projects such asStar Wars Jedi: Survivor,Assassin’s Creed Mirage,Skull and Bones, andThe Last of Us Part 1, though the list also includes plenty of indies, including someEpic Games Store PC exclusives likeTchiaandCrime Boss: Rockay City. A few AA games such asHades 2andSTALKER 2: Heart of Chernobyladd to the variety of the collection, whose contents were presumably derived from user polls, seeing how not every listed title can currently be wishlisted on Epic Games Store.
The newly published report also revealed that the digital storefront boasts over 230 million PC users since the turn of the year, a 19% growth compared to 2021. Epic Games Store also had 68 million active users in December, a 10% year-on-year increase. At the same time, the platform did experience a minor decline in sales, which amounted to $820 million throughout 2022, $20 million less than in the previous year, whose numbers were possibly boosted by the global pandemic and hence not sustainable. Thetotal value of free Epic Games Store titles offered throughout 2022was once again in the thousands of dollars, as per the same report.
Four games—Genshin Impact,GTA Online,Fortnite, andFinal Fantasy 7 Remake—that appeared on the 2021 list of the top ten Epic Games Store titles by player spend and engagement managed to maintain their momentum and once again make the rankings. While it remains to be seen whether they can repeat that feat this year, what’s certain is thatEpic Games Storecontinues to expand its reach at an impressive pace.
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