Steam Deck · News
Top 25 Steam Deck Most Played Games in May 2026
Summary
Slay the Spire 2 and Stardew Valley led May's Steam Deck chart, but the wider list mixed major launches with games built for interruption-friendly sessions. SteamCharts figures provide overall-Steam context, not Deck-only player counts.
Forza Horizon 6 and Subnautica 2 entered the Steam Deck chart's top five, while Slay the Spire 2 and Stardew Valley held first and second. Valve does not publish Deck-only player counts, so every SteamCharts figure below is an overall-Steam proxy.
What stayed on top
Slay the Spire 2 held first while its overall-Steam average cooled sharply from April to May. Its readable turns, low input friction, and suspend-friendly runs help explain why the Deck chart can diverge from broader Steam activity.
Stardew Valley climbed without a May launch or Steam-wide surge.
Vampire Crawlers is the smaller holdover. It slipped after Forza arrived, but staying fourth after a late-April launch suggests more than a brief novelty spike. We kept reaching for it because the loop is immediate, legible, and easy to put down.
Monthly rank watch
What moved in May
A cleaner read on the May top 25: quick takeaways up top, color-coded movement, and compact rank cells for scanning winners, drops, and new entries.
- Biggest climb
- Diablo IV, up 12 placesApril to May
- Largest drop
- Hades, down 9 placesApril to May
- New entries
- 7 joined the May listCompared with April
- Held No. 1
- Slay the Spire 2 held No. 1April and May
Steam Deck rank from Steam's last-30-days list. April baseline uses the prior public Steam Deck chart roundup.
Scroll horizontally for april and status.
| May rank and game | Move | April | Status |
|---|---|---|---|
| May rank 1: Slay the Spire 2 | Held rank | April rank 1 | Held |
| May rank 2: Stardew Valley | Moved up 1 place | April rank 3 | Up |
| May rank 3: Forza Horizon 6 | New entry in May | Not ranked in April | New |
| May rank 4: Vampire Crawlers | Moved down 2 places | April rank 2 | Down |
| May rank 5: Subnautica 2 | New entry in May | Not ranked in April | New |
| May rank 6: Diablo IV | Moved up 12 places | April rank 18 | Up |
| May rank 7: Baldur's Gate 3 | Moved down 3 places | April rank 4 | Down |
| May rank 8: Balatro | Moved down 1 place | April rank 7 | Down |
| May rank 9: Librarian: Tidy Up the Arcane Library! | New entry in May | Not ranked in April | New |
| May rank 10: Brotato | Moved down 1 place | April rank 9 | Down |
| May rank 11: Hades II | Moved down 5 places | April rank 6 | Down |
| May rank 12: Subnautica | New entry in May | Not ranked in April | New |
| May rank 13: Slay the Spire | Moved down 8 places | April rank 5 | Down |
| May rank 14: ELDEN RING | Moved down 1 place | April rank 13 | Down |
| May rank 15: The Binding of Isaac: Rebirth | Moved up 1 place | April rank 16 | Up |
| May rank 16: Red Dead Redemption 2 | Moved down 1 place | April rank 15 | Down |
| May rank 17: Cyberpunk 2077 | Moved down 5 places | April rank 12 | Down |
| May rank 18: Everything is Crab: The Animal Evolution Roguelite | New entry in May | Not ranked in April | New |
| May rank 19: Hades | Moved down 9 places | April rank 10 | Down |
| May rank 20: Mina the Hollower | New entry in May | Not ranked in April | New |
| May rank 21: Vampire Survivors | Moved down 2 places | April rank 19 | Down |
| May rank 22: Megabonk | Moved down 8 places | April rank 14 | Down |
| May rank 23: The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt | Moved down 1 place | April rank 22 | Down |
| May rank 24: LEGO Batman: Legacy of the Dark Knight | New entry in May | Not ranked in April | New |
| May rank 25: The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim Special Edition | Held rank | April rank 25 | Held |
- Held position
- Moved up
- Moved down
- New in May
The new arrivals
Forza Horizon 6 and Subnautica 2 had overall-Steam numbers large enough to make their top-five Deck debuts unsurprising, but Stardew Valley still outranked both with a much smaller overall-Steam audience.
The Subnautica 2 launch coincided with the original Subnautica entering the top 25 while its overall-Steam average more than doubled. This does not prove Deck-only causation, but it shows that franchise activity extended beyond the sequel.
Librarian reached ninth and had a visible May SteamCharts footprint, but the checked sources contained no public launch-scale explanation. Stronger handheld appeal is plausible, not confirmed.
Everything is Crab, Mina the Hollower, and LEGO Batman all entered the bottom half of the top 25.
Mina is also the one player-table gap below. The checked SteamCharts page did not return comparable April or May monthly rows, so those fields stay marked as n/a rather than filled with a guess.
Steam player context
What the player numbers actually show
Monthly rank movement tells one story; the player-count table shows the scale behind it. Counts are rounded to the nearest thousand.
- Highest May avg
- Forza Horizon 6, 199K averageOverall Steam average, not Deck-only
- Highest May peak
- Subnautica 2, 366K peakOverall Steam peak, not Deck-only
- Biggest avg gain
- Diablo IV, +275%April to May
- Best review share
- Stardew Valley, 98% positiveLifetime Steam review share
Player counts are overall Steam activity, not Steam Deck activity. Counts are rounded to the nearest thousand; exact values remain available in each count cell.
Scroll horizontally for change and reviews.
| May Steam Deck rank and game | May average overall Steam players | April to May overall Steam player-count change | Lifetime Steam reviews positive |
|---|---|---|---|
| May Steam Deck rank 1: Slay the Spire 2 | 112,661 average overall Steam players | -34.9% overall Steam player-count change | 63% lifetime Steam reviews positive |
| May Steam Deck rank 2: Stardew Valley | 60,412 average overall Steam players | -6.5% overall Steam player-count change | 98% lifetime Steam reviews positive |
| May Steam Deck rank 3: Forza Horizon 6 | 198,633 average overall Steam players | Change not available | 84% lifetime Steam reviews positive |
| May Steam Deck rank 4: Vampire Crawlers | 6,444 average overall Steam players | Change not available | 96% lifetime Steam reviews positive |
| May Steam Deck rank 5: Subnautica 2 | 102,207 average overall Steam players | Change not available | 91% lifetime Steam reviews positive |
| May Steam Deck rank 6: Diablo IV | 32,141 average overall Steam players | +275.1% overall Steam player-count change | 65% lifetime Steam reviews positive |
| May Steam Deck rank 7: Baldur's Gate 3 | 41,482 average overall Steam players | +3.6% overall Steam player-count change | 97% lifetime Steam reviews positive |
| May Steam Deck rank 8: Balatro | 8,027 average overall Steam players | -1.6% overall Steam player-count change | 98% lifetime Steam reviews positive |
| May Steam Deck rank 9: Librarian: Tidy Up the Arcane Library! | 10,395 average overall Steam players | Change not available | 95% lifetime Steam reviews positive |
| May Steam Deck rank 10: Brotato | 7,025 average overall Steam players | +21.3% overall Steam player-count change | 96% lifetime Steam reviews positive |
| May Steam Deck rank 11: Hades II | 5,269 average overall Steam players | -15.8% overall Steam player-count change | 96% lifetime Steam reviews positive |
| May Steam Deck rank 12: Subnautica | 19,623 average overall Steam players | +122.2% overall Steam player-count change | 97% lifetime Steam reviews positive |
| May Steam Deck rank 13: Slay the Spire | 11,270 average overall Steam players | -15.0% overall Steam player-count change | 98% lifetime Steam reviews positive |
| May Steam Deck rank 14: ELDEN RING | 30,727 average overall Steam players | +1.7% overall Steam player-count change | 93% lifetime Steam reviews positive |
| May Steam Deck rank 15: The Binding of Isaac: Rebirth | 17,957 average overall Steam players | +3.6% overall Steam player-count change | 97% lifetime Steam reviews positive |
| May Steam Deck rank 16: Red Dead Redemption 2 | 26,643 average overall Steam players | -12.2% overall Steam player-count change | 92% lifetime Steam reviews positive |
| May Steam Deck rank 17: Cyberpunk 2077 | 27,605 average overall Steam players | +0.4% overall Steam player-count change | 86% lifetime Steam reviews positive |
| May Steam Deck rank 18: Everything is Crab: The Animal Evolution Roguelite | 7,260 average overall Steam players | Change not available | 76% lifetime Steam reviews positive |
| May Steam Deck rank 19: Hades | 3,813 average overall Steam players | -20.5% overall Steam player-count change | 98% lifetime Steam reviews positive |
| May Steam Deck rank 20: Mina the Hollower | Average player count not available | Change not available | 86% lifetime Steam reviews positive |
| May Steam Deck rank 21: Vampire Survivors | 3,685 average overall Steam players | +11.9% overall Steam player-count change | 98% lifetime Steam reviews positive |
| May Steam Deck rank 22: Megabonk | 3,388 average overall Steam players | -24.8% overall Steam player-count change | 95% lifetime Steam reviews positive |
| May Steam Deck rank 23: The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt | 12,123 average overall Steam players | +5.2% overall Steam player-count change | 97% lifetime Steam reviews positive |
| May Steam Deck rank 24: LEGO Batman: Legacy of the Dark Knight | 15,045 average overall Steam players | Change not available | 96% lifetime Steam reviews positive |
| May Steam Deck rank 25: The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim Special Edition | 22,060 average overall Steam players | +6.7% overall Steam player-count change | 92% lifetime Steam reviews positive |
- Positive change
- Negative change
- Missing April comparison
- Held No. 1 or top review share
The review column is the lifetime positive-review share from Steam's user review summary data, rounded to the nearest whole percent and accessed on June 1, 2026. Like the SteamCharts data, it is an overall Steam Store signal, not Deck-only sentiment. The table covers the full May top 25; where SteamCharts did not return comparable monthly rows, the player-count fields stay marked as n/a.
Diablo IV moved differently. Its Deck jump lined up with a rise from about 8,569 to 32,141 average overall-Steam players, according to SteamCharts. It also stayed in our Deck rotation because the controls, readability, suspend behavior, and repeatable grind worked in handheld sessions. Vampire Crawlers reached the same device through a much smaller, faster loop.
Why Baldur's Gate 3 slipped
Baldur's Gate 3 fell from fourth to seventh while its overall-Steam average rose about 3.6%, from 40,041 to 41,482. Two new releases entered the top five and Diablo IV jumped into sixth, making crowding more plausible than a simple loss of players. PC Gamer noted shortly before May closed that Baldur's Gate 3 had fallen out of the Deck top five in only four of its first 33 months.