Visual Novel games on Steam, measured
Stories told through text, character art and choices.
1,458 games tagged Visual Novel came out on Steam in 2025 (1,216 in 2024), and 1,416 have come out so far in 2026, +38% on the same weeks of 2025.
Of the 1,889 released between Jan 1, 2024 and Jun 30, 2025, 4% reached 1,000 reviews, against 4.2% across all of Steam (1.0× the Steam rate).
Most of the niche prices itself under $5 (1.2% reached 1,000 reviews there); $20 and up did best at 8.2%.
3,679 more Visual Novel pages are on Steam but not released yet, 163 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 Visual Novel released each year. 2026 is counted to Sep 27, 2026; the same weeks of 2025 saw 1,024.
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.
| Visual Novel | All of Steam | |
|---|---|---|
| Games released | 1,889 | 24,918 |
| Reached 10 reviews | 67.8% | 53.2% |
| Reached 100 reviews | 25.2% | 17.3% |
| Reached 1,000 reviews | 4%95% range 3.2% to 5% | 4.2% |
| Median reviews | 24 | 11 |
| Median list price (paid games) | $7.99 | $4.99 |
| Free to play | 19.6% | 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 | 587 | 12.1% | 1.2%0.6% to 2.4% | under 10 |
| $5 to $9.99 | 423 | 25.1% | 3.3%2% to 5.5% | 18 |
| $10 to $14.99 | 218 | 33% | 6.9%4.2% to 11% | 40 |
| $15 to $19.99 | 156 | 42.9% | 7.7%4.5% to 13% | 69 |
| $20 and up | 134 | 47% | 8.2%4.6% to 14.1% | 88 |
— 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 Visual Novel 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
- FMV: 19% reached 1,000 reviews (58 games)
- Immersive Sim: 11.4% reached 1,000 reviews (88 games)
- Multiple Endings: 8% reached 1,000 reviews (224 games)
Filling fastest in 2026
- Word Game: 73 so far vs 36 (+103%)
- Multiple Endings: 208 so far vs 121 (+72%)
- Detective: 82 so far vs 50 (+64%)
| Tag | Games (2024–2025 cohort) | 1,000+ reviews | 100+ reviews | 2026 so far vs 2025 | Unreleased |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Interactive Fiction | 449 | 3.3%2% to 5.4% | 22.5% | 348 vs 262+33% | 959 |
| Choose Your Own Adventure | 367 | 1.6%0.8% to 3.5% | 16.1% | 270 vs 189+43% | 644 |
| Dating Sim | 346 | 6.4%4.2% to 9.4% | 35% | 218 vs 165+32% | 585 |
| Romance | 282 | 4.3%2.5% to 7.3% | 29.8% | 161 vs 132+22% | 458 |
| Multiple Endings | 224 | 8%5.1% to 12.3% | 33% | 208 vs 121+72% | 477 |
| Choices Matter | 202 | 5.4%3.1% to 9.5% | 26.2% | 198 vs 127+56% | 569 |
| Mystery | 181 | 2.8%1.2% to 6.3% | 28.2% | 137 vs 102+34% | 413 |
| Psychological Horror | 171 | 4.7%2.4% to 9% | 32.7% | 137 vs 94+46% | 398 |
| Puzzle | 185 | 3.8%1.8% to 7.6% | 25.4% | 121 vs 101+20% | 394 |
| Point & Click | 171 | 2.3%0.9% to 5.9% | 18.7% | 116 vs 75+55% | 356 |
| Text-Based | 165 | 0.6%0.1% to 3.4% | 15.2% | 113 vs 77+47% | 217 |
| Horror | 160 | 4.4%2.1% to 8.8% | 30.6% | 100 vs 87+15% | 294 |
| LGBTQ+ | 144 | 4.9%2.4% to 9.7% | 29.2% | 110 vs 74+49% | 262 |
| Detective | 101 | 6.9%3.4% to 13.6% | 33.7% | 82 vs 50+64% | 252 |
| Immersive Sim | 88 | 11.4%6.3% to 19.7% | 44.3% | 77 vs 48+60% | 141 |
| 2D Platformer | 81 | 1.2%0.2% to 6.7% | 16% | 75 vs 46+63% | 198 |
| Word Game | 69 | 1.4%0.3% to 7.8% | 29% | 73 vs 36+103% | 210 |
| Otome | 72 | 4.2%1.4% to 11.5% | 16.7% | 42 vs 35+20% | 129 |
| Psychological | 53 | 3.8%1% to 12.8% | 18.9% | 58 vs 36+61% | 157 |
| FMV | 58 | 19%10.9% to 30.9% | 79.3% | 53 vs 44+21% | 56 |
| JRPG | 66 | 3%0.8% to 10.4% | 25.8% | 41 vs 47−13% | 118 |
| Incremental | 64 | 3.1%0.9% to 10.7% | 14.1% | 41 vs 26+58% | 73 |
| Dialogue Heavy | 41 | 0%0% to 8.6% | 9.8% | 49 vs 38+29% | 122 |
| Investigation | 52 | 3.8%1.1% to 13% | 32.7% | 35 vs 31+13% | 114 |
— fewer than 20 games in the cohort. Ranges are 95% intervals.
What broke through in the last 12 months
The most-reviewed Visual Novel games released since Sep 27, 2025. Still young, so these counts are still climbing.
- Dispatch108,714 reviews, 97% positive · $29.99 · Oct 22, 2025
- The Weeping Swan: Ten Days of the City's Fall8,275 reviews, 58% positive · $11.99 · Apr 2, 2026
- Esoteric Ebb7,041 reviews, 95% positive · $24.99 · Mar 3, 2026
- Z.A.T.O. // I Love the World and Everything In It6,619 reviews, 98% positive · Free · Nov 10, 2025
- School Days6,046 reviews, 77% positive · $14.99 · Jan 28, 2026
- UNBEATABLE5,754 reviews, 93% positive · $27.99 · Dec 9, 2025
- Mandate Of Heaven5,461 reviews, 90% positive · $14.99 · Nov 19, 2025
- 月华辉映之刻4,236 reviews, 89% positive · $11.99 · Dec 5, 2025
What's coming
3,679 Visual Novel pages are live on Steam but not released: 163 with a date in the next 90 days, 913 with a later date, month or quarter, and 2,603 saying "Coming soon" or "To be announced". For comparison, 1,458 came out in all of 2025.
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How we counted, and what the numbers can't tell you
- Every game carrying Steam's Visual Novel tag (tag id 3799), read page by page from Steam's public store search on Sep 27, 2026: 12,406 games, 8,727 of them released (Steam's own released count: 8,728). 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".