Made with Unity August 2023 roundup: Sea of Stars skyrockets, Phasmophobia spikes, and awards are in the air

August featured so many memorable moments, including stops at SIGGRAPH 2023 and gamescom 2023. Keep reading to discover what Unity creators accomplished in August, including the latest game releases.

Impressively, Phasmophobia experienced a significant spike in peak concurrent users, reaching over 86,000 on August 17, 2023. This is a substantial increase from around 21,000 peak concurrent users on July 31, 2023. The data, captured through Steam’s official Web API, reflects a growth of approximately 300% in less than a month. Congrats to the team at Kinetic Games on this accomplishment.

Next up, let’s hear it for the PC game studios who knocked it out of the park in the latest Steam reports. First, Steam’s top 20 new releases in July featured 12 games made with Unity, including Ultimate Epic Battle Simulator 2, Viewfinder, and My Friendly Neighborhood, who each secured a spot in the top five. Additionally, Rust and Unturned continued their reign in the top 20 most played games on Steam.*

Also notable, Sabotage Studio’s new RPG Sea of Stars sold 100,000 copies within one day of its August launch thanks to an incredible effort by its team and hype from the gaming community. And the good news hasn’t stopped there, with the game reaching year one projections by the end of release week.

As positive reviews rolled in for indie titles like My Friendly Neighborhood and Viewfinder, our team took to the streets of Cologne, Germany to mingle with the gaming community and asked you to help choose the next hit title from those showcased at gamescom 2023. The winner? Bulwark: Falconeer Chronicles. Check out developer Tomas Sala’s reaction below.

Moving to the world of video and streaming, the close of August brought more creator resources to the community. On Twitch, we hosted the Heavenly Bodies team for a Creator Spotlight (watch above) that covered physics systems, ropes, and pressure simulations. Then, during gamescom, we played Battle Shapers and GTFO live, rounding things out by playing your games in a third Let’s Play session.

On YouTube, there are not one but two new tutorials for devs – one on C# code style and the other on volumetrics. For bite-sized tips, check out our latest YouTube Shorts.

There are so many impressive shares on social media using the #MadeWithUnity hashtag. Here are a few August highlights.

On Twitter, @SunnyVStudio offered tips for devs, starting with sprites, while @21cDucks gave clean pixels (above) and @Liuweibo163 predicted thunderstorms and lightning.

Meanwhile on Instagram, @sabotage.studio announced the release of Sea of Stars as did @mimimigames about Shadow Gambit.

Last but not least, here are some Unity Asset Store highlights from August:

• Alchemist House | BK
• Winter Tundra | VIVID Arts
• Japanese Mountain Shrine | Manu 3d
• F-35 and Mig 29 Fighter Jet assets | studiolab.dev

Keep adding the #MadeWithUnity hashtag to your posts to show what you’ve been up to and spread the project love.

August was another major release month for games using Unity, including the Sea of Stars success. Read on for a non-exhaustive list.

• Big Fat Battle, Robot Squid (August 1 – Early access)
• Ninja or Die: Shadow of the Sun, Nao Games (August 2)
• Hammer of Virtue, No Pest Productions (August 7)
• I Am Future: Cozy Apocalypse Survival, Mandragora (August 8)
• Synthwave Racers, Corrtex Games (August 10)
• Moving Out 2, SMG Studio and Devm Games (August 15)
• Waven, Ankama Studio (August 16 – Early access)
• Stories of Blossom, Soft Leaf Studios (August 16)
• Shadow Gambit: The Cursed Crew, Mimimi Games (August 17)
• BOOK OF HOURS, Weather Factory (August 17)
• Bomb Rush Cyberfunk, Team Reptile (August 18)
• Towers of Thana, Bishop Games (August 21 – Early access)
• DepowerBall, Mega Power Games (August 21)
• Whisker Squadron: Survivor, Flippfly LLC (August 21)
• WrestleQuest, Mega Cat Studios (August 21)
• Blasphemous 2, The Game Kitchen (August 24)
• Rune Gate, Devwind (August 25)
• Sea of Stars, Sabotage Studio (August 28)
• Goodbye Volcano High, KO_OP (August 29)

Do you see any on the list that have already become favorites or find that we’re missing a title? Share your thoughts in the forums.

We post new game releases and milestone spotlights every Monday on the @UnityGames Twitter and @unitytechnologies Instagram. Be sure to give us a follow and support your fellow creators.

If you’re creating with Unity and haven’t seen your projects in any of our monthly roundups, submit them for the chance to be featured.

That’s a wrap for August. For more community news as it happens, follow us on social media: Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, Instagram, YouTube, or Twitch.

*Ranking as of September 1, 2023 at 8:30 am PT.