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STEAM CHARTS: Castlevania spiritual successor Bloodstained sinks its teeth into Steam No.1 spot

STEAM CHARTS: Castlevania spiritual successor Bloodstained sinks its teeth into Steam No.1 spot

The long-awaited spiritual follow-up to PlayStation-era Castlevania titles Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night has flown to the top of the charts on Steam last week.

Koji Igarashi's metroidvania finally launched on June 19th, published by 505 Games, following a Kickstarter crowdfunding push that launched in May 2015 and raised $5.5m from almost 65,000 people - far higher than its $500,000 goal.

Though it has been repeatedly delayed, Bloodstained may be one of the few 'spiritual successor' titles that has actually hit the mark - similar projects have included Mega Man follow-up Might No.9, which was crucified on launch, while Playtonic's Rare-style platform Yooka Laylee disappointed many fans at release but is widely regarded as being a solid game now.

Second place went to Playerunknown's Battlegrounds - possibly due to the attention the new Lite version is getting due to it rolling out in India - ahead of Creative Assembly and Sega's Total War: Three Kingdoms.

The No.4 spot goes to Devolver Digital's latest synth and cool murder simulator My Friend Pedro, which garnered something of a cult following ahead of launch in part due to hilariously violent gifs on social media. Meanwhile, pre-orders for the eagerly-anticipated Cyberpunk 2077 drop from the top spot to No.6 in their second week.

Here is the Steam Top Ten for the week ending Saturday, June 22nd:

1. Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night, 505 Games
2. Playerunknown's Battlegrounds, PUBG Corp
3. Total War: Three Kingdoms, Sega
4. My Friend Pedro, Devolver Digital
5. Ark: Survival Evolved, Studio Wildcard
6. Cyberpunk 2077, CD Projekt RED (P)
7. Grand Theft AUto V, Rockstar
8. Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six: Siege, Ubisoft
9. Mordhau, Triternion
10. Rust, Facepunch


PCGamesInsider Contributing Editor

Alex Calvin is a freelance journalist who writes about the business of games. He started out at UK trade paper MCV in 2013 and left as deputy editor over three years later. In June 2017, he joined Steel Media as the editor for new site PCGamesInsider.biz. In October 2019 he left this full-time position at the company but still contributes to the site on a daily basis. He has also written for GamesIndustry.biz, VGC, Games London, The Observer/Guardian and Esquire UK.