Steam’s August 2026 “Top Wishlists” chart is led by Valve’s Deadlock, followed by Light No Fire, Fable, and Blight: Survival—but the important finding is that this is no longer a clean list of unreleased PC games. Valve’s own live Steam chart mixes playable-but-not-publicly-released software, forthcoming games, free-to-play projects, and even hardware in one ranking. That makes it a useful signal of attention, but a poor substitute for a release calendar or a sales forecast.
GameGrin’s monthly snapshot, published August 5, captured the same top four and placed FLEXUS’s newly announced Dear Passengers at No. 5. Steam’s current Top Wishlists page matches that ordering through the first several positions, including Kingmakers, Total War: WARHAMMER 40,000, Dragon’s Dogma 2: Dark Arisen, and Resident Evil Veronica. The bigger story is how quickly Steam interest can turn into placement: a week after its July 14 reveal, Dear Passengers had already reached the chart’s upper tier.
PC Gamer reported that FLEXUS said the co-op airline-management game accumulated 700,000 wishlists in its first 36 hours and exceeded 1.5 million shortly afterward. Those figures are developer-supplied and Steam does not expose a public per-game wishlist counter, so they cannot be independently audited from the storefront. Still, the game’s No. 5 position on Steam’s public chart confirms that the launch trailer converted attention into an unusually large early audience.
The August ranking includes Steam Frame at No. 14. Steam classifies it as hardware, and its placement sits above games including Unrecord, Phantom Blade Zero, Soulframe, Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War IV, Persona 4 Revival, and Onimusha: Way of the Sword.
That detail is easy to dismiss as a catalog quirk, but it changes what the list measures. A user who adds a forthcoming Valve hardware product to a Steam wishlist is registering purchase interest through the same mechanism as someone tracking an RPG expansion or a horror remake. The result is a single engagement chart, not a pure popularity contest among video games.
Deadlock also demonstrates the ambiguity. It is No. 1 while Valve continues to label it “To be announced” on Steam, despite the game being playable by invited users and already maintaining an active player population. SteamDB’s separate public follower data records Deadlock with more than 417,000 followers and a recent concurrent-player count above 54,000, but Steam followers and Steam wishlists are different measures. The storefront’s first-place placement tells us there is enormous continuing interest; it does not reveal how many unique customers are waiting to buy anything.
For Windows PC players, the practical point is simple: do not read this list as 20 imminent releases. It contains projects with dates, projects with year-only windows, products that may be free at launch, and titles still marked “To be announced.”
The storefront now lists Fable for February 23, 2027, rather than the “To be announced” window in GameGrin’s rundown. The Blood of Dawnwalker has a September 2, 2026 date on Steam, rather than the generic “Coming soon” tag. ILL is now listed for 2027. Phantom Blade Zero, which GameGrin listed for September 8, is now showing October 28, 2026, while Onimusha: Way of the Sword is showing September 3 rather than September 24.
Those are not cosmetic changes. A ranking chart encourages readers to treat the entries as a common pool of “upcoming” software, yet the commercial decision points differ sharply:
Capcom said on August 4 that Resident Evil Veronica had passed two million Steam wishlists. GamesRadar reported the announcement and noted that the number is not a public Steam counter; it comes directly from Capcom. The milestone also should not be read as two million PC sales, because the remake is planned for PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X|S, and Switch 2 alongside PC. But it establishes a scale that the ranking alone cannot show.
The chart position is more revealing when compared with Dear Passengers. FLEXUS’s new co-op game has climbed to fifth through a sudden viral surge, while the Capcom remake is ninth despite a stated two million wishlists. That is not evidence that Dear Passengers has surpassed Resident Evil Veronica in lifetime interest. Steam’s ordering is dynamic and appears to reflect its own current recommendation and chart logic, while game pages, product types, regions, and user settings can all affect what users see. It does show that a fresh trailer and a strong co-op premise can overwhelm established franchise interest in the short term.
For publishers, that is the operational lesson: wishlist velocity can matter as much as accumulated wishlists when a game is being surfaced to people browsing Steam. For players, it means an abrupt climb is worth investigating, not blindly buying into.
Ubisoft confirmed the July 9 release across PC, PlayStation 5, and Xbox Series X|S, with the PC version available through Steam, Epic Games Store, Ubisoft Connect, Ubisoft+, and streaming services. SteamDB’s product history also records the Steam release on that date. Once the game became purchasable, the relevant Steam measures changed from wishlists to revenue, active users, reviews, support issues, performance updates, and post-launch retention.
GameGrin also says Assassin’s Creed Black Flag Resynced peaked at 104,756 concurrent Steam players on July 12. No independently published Steam data reviewed for this report confirms that exact peak figure, so it should be treated as GameGrin’s reporting rather than an established industry record. The broader conclusion needs no qualification: launch removes a title from this chart even if it remains one of the month’s most discussed PC releases.
That turnover is why the monthly list is valuable when used correctly. It catches the titles that have not yet been tested by price, performance, reviews, or launch-day server load.
The entries with the most immediate Windows PC relevance are the dated releases: The Blood of Dawnwalker on September 2, Onimusha: Way of the Sword on September 3, Dawn of War IV on September 17, Dragon’s Dogma 2: Dark Arisen on October 8, and Phantom Blade Zero on October 28. Those games will soon move from anticipation to the harder questions—system requirements, Steam Deck support, launch stability, DRM, pricing, and whether the shipped game resembles its trailer.
Until then, August’s real leader is not any individual title. It is Steam’s wishlist itself: a platform feature that can put an unreleased multiplayer shooter, a $49.99 expansion, a free-to-play action RPG, and Valve hardware into the same commercial conversation—while revealing almost none of the actual numbers behind the order.
PC Gamer reported that FLEXUS said the co-op airline-management game accumulated 700,000 wishlists in its first 36 hours and exceeded 1.5 million shortly afterward. Those figures are developer-supplied and Steam does not expose a public per-game wishlist counter, so they cannot be independently audited from the storefront. Still, the game’s No. 5 position on Steam’s public chart confirms that the launch trailer converted attention into an unusually large early audience.
Valve’s chart is broader than its name suggests
The August ranking includes Steam Frame at No. 14. Steam classifies it as hardware, and its placement sits above games including Unrecord, Phantom Blade Zero, Soulframe, Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War IV, Persona 4 Revival, and Onimusha: Way of the Sword.That detail is easy to dismiss as a catalog quirk, but it changes what the list measures. A user who adds a forthcoming Valve hardware product to a Steam wishlist is registering purchase interest through the same mechanism as someone tracking an RPG expansion or a horror remake. The result is a single engagement chart, not a pure popularity contest among video games.
Deadlock also demonstrates the ambiguity. It is No. 1 while Valve continues to label it “To be announced” on Steam, despite the game being playable by invited users and already maintaining an active player population. SteamDB’s separate public follower data records Deadlock with more than 417,000 followers and a recent concurrent-player count above 54,000, but Steam followers and Steam wishlists are different measures. The storefront’s first-place placement tells us there is enormous continuing interest; it does not reveal how many unique customers are waiting to buy anything.
For Windows PC players, the practical point is simple: do not read this list as 20 imminent releases. It contains projects with dates, projects with year-only windows, products that may be free at launch, and titles still marked “To be announced.”
The release information has already moved
GameGrin’s August list is accurate as a ranking snapshot, but several release fields are already stale or incomplete compared with Steam’s current listings. That is the hazard of treating a monthly chart as a buying guide.The storefront now lists Fable for February 23, 2027, rather than the “To be announced” window in GameGrin’s rundown. The Blood of Dawnwalker has a September 2, 2026 date on Steam, rather than the generic “Coming soon” tag. ILL is now listed for 2027. Phantom Blade Zero, which GameGrin listed for September 8, is now showing October 28, 2026, while Onimusha: Way of the Sword is showing September 3 rather than September 24.
Those are not cosmetic changes. A ranking chart encourages readers to treat the entries as a common pool of “upcoming” software, yet the commercial decision points differ sharply:
- Dragon’s Dogma 2: Dark Arisen is positioned as a paid expansion arriving October 8, 2026, with Steam listing a $49.99 price.
- Soulframe is marked “Coming soon” and free to play, meaning its chart position cannot be interpreted the same way as a $69.99 game.
- Dawn of War IV is due September 17 and is already taking discounted preorders, placing it much closer to a transaction than a distant wishlisted concept.
- Fable has crossed into a dated 2027 release, but remains high enough on the list to show that a longer wait has not materially cooled interest.
Capcom has two of the month’s clearest signals
Capcom is unusually prominent in the top 20 with Dragon’s Dogma 2: Dark Arisen at No. 8 and Resident Evil Veronica at No. 9. The first has a defined date and price; the second has a looser 2027 window but much stronger evidence of raw consumer intent.Capcom said on August 4 that Resident Evil Veronica had passed two million Steam wishlists. GamesRadar reported the announcement and noted that the number is not a public Steam counter; it comes directly from Capcom. The milestone also should not be read as two million PC sales, because the remake is planned for PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X|S, and Switch 2 alongside PC. But it establishes a scale that the ranking alone cannot show.
The chart position is more revealing when compared with Dear Passengers. FLEXUS’s new co-op game has climbed to fifth through a sudden viral surge, while the Capcom remake is ninth despite a stated two million wishlists. That is not evidence that Dear Passengers has surpassed Resident Evil Veronica in lifetime interest. Steam’s ordering is dynamic and appears to reflect its own current recommendation and chart logic, while game pages, product types, regions, and user settings can all affect what users see. It does show that a fresh trailer and a strong co-op premise can overwhelm established franchise interest in the short term.
For publishers, that is the operational lesson: wishlist velocity can matter as much as accumulated wishlists when a game is being surfaced to people browsing Steam. For players, it means an abrupt climb is worth investigating, not blindly buying into.
July launches removed an expected contender
The most consequential departure from July’s top 20 was Assassin’s Creed Black Flag Resynced, which had ranked No. 13 in GameGrin’s prior list. Its absence is ordinary: Ubisoft released the remake on July 9, 2026, so it no longer belongs in a forward-looking wishlist ranking.Ubisoft confirmed the July 9 release across PC, PlayStation 5, and Xbox Series X|S, with the PC version available through Steam, Epic Games Store, Ubisoft Connect, Ubisoft+, and streaming services. SteamDB’s product history also records the Steam release on that date. Once the game became purchasable, the relevant Steam measures changed from wishlists to revenue, active users, reviews, support issues, performance updates, and post-launch retention.
GameGrin also says Assassin’s Creed Black Flag Resynced peaked at 104,756 concurrent Steam players on July 12. No independently published Steam data reviewed for this report confirms that exact peak figure, so it should be treated as GameGrin’s reporting rather than an established industry record. The broader conclusion needs no qualification: launch removes a title from this chart even if it remains one of the month’s most discussed PC releases.
That turnover is why the monthly list is valuable when used correctly. It catches the titles that have not yet been tested by price, performance, reviews, or launch-day server load.
What August’s list actually says about PC demand
The first 20 entries are not united by genre. They are united by unresolved promises. Valve’s competitive shooter, Hello Games’ survival project, Playground Games’ Fable reboot, Capcom’s expansion and remake pipeline, a medieval co-op horror game, an RTS sequel, and a hardware product are all benefiting from the same low-friction action: asking Steam to notify a user later.The entries with the most immediate Windows PC relevance are the dated releases: The Blood of Dawnwalker on September 2, Onimusha: Way of the Sword on September 3, Dawn of War IV on September 17, Dragon’s Dogma 2: Dark Arisen on October 8, and Phantom Blade Zero on October 28. Those games will soon move from anticipation to the harder questions—system requirements, Steam Deck support, launch stability, DRM, pricing, and whether the shipped game resembles its trailer.
Until then, August’s real leader is not any individual title. It is Steam’s wishlist itself: a platform feature that can put an unreleased multiplayer shooter, a $49.99 expansion, a free-to-play action RPG, and Valve hardware into the same commercial conversation—while revealing almost none of the actual numbers behind the order.
References
- Primary source: GameGrin
Published: 2026-08-05T08:00:02+00:00
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