Tower Defense games on Steam, measured
Place defences along a path to stop waves of enemies.
548 games tagged Tower Defense came out on Steam in 2025 (535 in 2024), and 652 have come out so far in 2026, +62% on the same weeks of 2025.
Of the 810 released between Jan 1, 2024 and Jun 30, 2025, 3.5% reached 1,000 reviews, against 4.2% across all of Steam (0.8× the Steam rate).
Most of the niche prices itself under $5 (0.3% reached 1,000 reviews there); $20 and up did best at 20%.
1,819 more Tower Defense pages are on Steam but not released yet, 111 of them dated within 90 days.
Counted game by game from Steam's store on Sep 27, 2026. How we counted, and what the numbers can't tell you.
How fast the niche is filling
Games tagged Tower Defense released each year. 2026 is counted to Sep 27, 2026; the same weeks of 2025 saw 402.
How its games did
Games released Jan 1, 2024 to Jun 30, 2025, so every one has been on sale at least 14 months, against every Steam game released in the same window. Reaching 1,000 reviews is the usual rule of thumb for roughly $150,000 in gross revenue; 100 reviews is real traction.
| Tower Defense | All of Steam | |
|---|---|---|
| Games released | 810 | 24,918 |
| Reached 10 reviews | 47% | 53.2% |
| Reached 100 reviews | 15.4% | 17.3% |
| Reached 1,000 reviews | 3.5%95% range 2.4% to 5% | 4.2% |
| Median reviews | under 10 | 11 |
| Median list price (paid games) | $5.99 | $4.99 |
| Free to play | 13.2% | 17.7% |
Price and outcome
The same cohort by undiscounted US list price on the day we counted. Higher prices go with bigger teams and more content, and a game that cut its price after a weak launch now sits in a cheaper band, so read this as what games priced like yours did, not as proof that raising a price lifts sales.
| Price | Games | 100+ reviews | 1,000+ reviews | Median reviews |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Under $5 | 346 | 4% | 0.3%0.1% to 1.6% | under 10 |
| $5 to $9.99 | 200 | 15.5% | 3.5%1.7% to 7% | under 10 |
| $10 to $14.99 | 84 | 27.4% | 4.8%1.9% to 11.6% | 28 |
| $15 to $19.99 | 38 | 65.8% | 15.8%7.4% to 30.4% | 254 |
| $20 and up | 35 | 34.3% | 20%10% to 35.9% | 11 |
— fewer than 20 games, too few to compare.
Sub-niches: where the odds and the crowding differ
Other tags that appear in the top seven tags of Tower Defense games. Tags that describe a look or a platform (Pixel Graphics, Singleplayer) are left out. Players add tags to games that are already popular, so narrow tags flatter their hit rates: compare sub-niches with each other, not with Steam.
Best odds
- Base Building: 9.7% reached 1,000 reviews (103 games)
- Action RTS: 7.8% reached 1,000 reviews (51 games)
- Resource Management: 6.5% reached 1,000 reviews (46 games)
Filling fastest in 2026
- Idler: 60 so far vs 15 (+300%)
- Incremental: 66 so far vs 17 (+288%)
- Auto Battler: 70 so far vs 21 (+233%)
| Tag | Games (2024–2025 cohort) | 1,000+ reviews | 100+ reviews | 2026 so far vs 2025 | Unreleased |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Roguelite | 148 | 5.4%2.8% to 10.3% | 24.3% | 151 vs 78+94% | 348 |
| Roguelike | 123 | 4.9%2.3% to 10.2% | 24.4% | 125 vs 61+105% | 268 |
| Base Building | 103 | 9.7%5.4% to 17% | 27.2% | 98 vs 54+82% | 301 |
| RTS | 130 | 4.6%2.1% to 9.7% | 21.5% | 66 vs 660% | 238 |
| Real Time Tactics | 115 | 2.6%0.9% to 7.4% | 13% | 78 vs 58+35% | 268 |
| Auto Battler | 56 | 5.4%1.8% to 14.6% | 17.9% | 70 vs 21+233% | 163 |
| PvE | 63 | 1.6%0.3% to 8.5% | 9.5% | 59 vs 31+90% | 163 |
| Survival | 66 | 1.5%0.3% to 8.1% | 30.3% | 41 vs 29+41% | 134 |
| Action Roguelike | 55 | 1.8%0.3% to 9.6% | 16.4% | 51 vs 31+65% | 172 |
| Bullet Hell | 47 | 4.3%1.2% to 14.2% | 23.4% | 56 vs 24+133% | 93 |
| Incremental | 33 | 3%0.5% to 15.3% | 18.2% | 66 vs 17+288% | 162 |
| Shooter | 59 | 0%0% to 6.1% | 6.8% | 40 vs 28+43% | 103 |
| Building | 62 | 1.6%0.3% to 8.6% | 17.7% | 33 vs 32+3% | 123 |
| Resource Management | 46 | 6.5%2.2% to 17.5% | 19.6% | 45 vs 22+105% | 137 |
| Arcade | 45 | 2.2%0.4% to 11.6% | 6.7% | 45 vs 25+80% | 85 |
| Idler | 26 | 3.8%0.7% to 18.9% | 26.9% | 60 vs 15+300% | 108 |
| Action RTS | 51 | 7.8%3.1% to 18.5% | 9.8% | 30 vs 20+50% | 105 |
| Wargame | 53 | 0%0% to 6.8% | 9.4% | 22 vs 23−4% | 80 |
| City Builder | 31 | 6.5%1.8% to 20.7% | 35.5% | 41 vs 22+86% | 126 |
| 2D Platformer | 31 | 3.2%0.6% to 16.2% | 6.5% | 34 vs 11+209% | 35 |
| Deckbuilding | 30 | 0%0% to 11.4% | 16.7% | 26 vs 15+73% | 90 |
| Card Game | 32 | 3.1%0.6% to 15.7% | 12.5% | 23 vs 16+44% | 89 |
| Puzzle | 26 | 0%0% to 12.9% | 11.5% | 26 vs 12+117% | 45 |
| Shoot 'Em Up | 32 | 0%0% to 10.7% | 18.8% | 18 vs 17+6% | 31 |
— fewer than 20 games in the cohort. Ranges are 95% intervals.
What broke through in the last 12 months
The most-reviewed Tower Defense games released since Sep 27, 2025. Still young, so these counts are still climbing.
- The Front3,717 reviews, 66% positive · $19.99 · Oct 30, 2025
- The Perfect Tower II3,305 reviews, 85% positive · Free · Nov 30, 2025
- Plants vs. Zombies™: Replanted3,220 reviews, 64% positive · $19.99 · Oct 23, 2025
- Becastled2,990 reviews, 82% positive · $19.99 · Oct 22, 2025
- Sir, We Have an Orc Problem2,677 reviews, 86% positive · $9.99 · Jul 28, 2026
- Emberward2,668 reviews, 97% positive · $19.99 · Sep 17, 2026
- EverSiege: Untold Ages1,922 reviews, 68% positive · $19.99 · Mar 26, 2026
- Zero Stress King: Idle Defense1,863 reviews, 87% positive · $4.99 · Mar 30, 2026
What's coming
1,819 Tower Defense pages are live on Steam but not released: 111 with a date in the next 90 days, 467 with a later date, month or quarter, and 1,241 saying "Coming soon" or "To be announced". For comparison, 548 came out in all of 2025.
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Related niches
How we counted, and what the numbers can't tell you
- Every game carrying Steam's Tower Defense tag (tag id 1645), read page by page from Steam's public store search on Sep 27, 2026: 5,021 games, 3,202 of them released (Steam's own released count: 3,203). Games only: no DLC, soundtracks or software.
- Success rates use one fixed cohort, games released Jan 1, 2024 to Jun 30, 2025, because review counts grow with age: a game from last month has not had time to reach 1,000 reviews, and comparing it with a 2024 game would measure age, not success.
- Review counts are the totals Steam's search shows a US visitor, which may count English-language reviews only. Steam prints no count under 10 reviews, so "under 10" is as precise as the data gets. Prices are the undiscounted US list price on the day we counted, not the launch price: a game that cut its price after launch counts at the new price.
- Tags are community tags. Players add them to games that are already popular, which flatters the hit rates of narrow tags. Delisted games and age-restricted games are not in Steam's default search, so they are not here either.
- "Reached 1,000 reviews" is a proxy for commercial success (roughly $150,000 gross by the common rule of thumb), not a revenue figure. We publish no revenue estimates.
- The full aggregate is public: /api/niches/data. Cite it as "Steam Niche Index, Steam Page Analyzer, September 2026".