There’s a version of Steam’s stat page is which just 115 people are playing Counter-Strike: Global Offensive – and they’re doing it on PS3. It’s a strange place we’re not normally privy to – but for a brief moment yesterday afternoon, Steam users had their eyes opened to a slew of apparent games-in-testing.
Games like Killing Floor 2. And Half-Minute Hero 2. And Batman Arkham Origins’ handheld sibling, Blackgate.
The veracity of the page isn’t beyond doubt – it popped up on NeoGAF, not the Associated Press – but the presence of real, upcoming Steam games on the list lends it a tentative kind of credence. Nosgoth, Next Car Game, Thief, South Park, Incognita, Dead Island: Epidemic, The Crew, Nidhogg – all bona fide, unreleased games headed for Valve’s platform at some point in the not-so-distant future.
Attention naturally turns, then, to the supposed sequels and ports scattered among those more familiar names. It’s certainly not beyond belief that Tripwire might be working on a Killing Floor 2, given the unlikely slow-burn success its predecessor has found on Steam. More surprising is Half-Minute Hero 2 – the 2011 sequel to the PSP and Xbox bastard child of the RTS, the RPG and the shmup. Ascension, according to our Tim, is the “best card game on iOS”.
The ports aren’t all gold, however. Happy Wars is an Xbox-only free-to-play Awesomenauts rival. Batman Arkham Origins: Blackgate is a two-and-a-half-dimensioned fighting game you’ve never heard of, released alongside its parent game in October for the 3DS and PS Vita. It was developed by part of the team behind Metroid Prime, but earned that classic Wikipedia refrain: “generally mixed reviews”.
Can you sift anything more valuable from the list? Let us know in the comments.