Zero players. Zero percent positive reviews. Two games on Steam’s New Releases chart that launched on May 3 and died the same day.

Trickshot Tactics is a 1v1 online billiards game from developer Time Relic Games, published by Darkest Room. It promises a “wild mix of deck building, strategy, and pure skill.” It shipped without a tutorial, without a single-player mode, and — by the only reviewer’s account — without a way to hit the ball anywhere except dead-center. At 12 minutes of playtime, that reviewer listed the problems plainly: no tutorial, no single-player, no opponents to be found in matchmaking, and no apparent mechanic for aiming shots. The game already sits at a 20% launch discount, dropping from $4.99 to $3.99. At time of writing, concurrent players stand at zero.

Besitupia: Mediator had an even quieter debut. The adventure-indie title from Oppressive HellMode, published by HellMode Games, also holds a 0% rating. Its sole review is one word: “Terrible.” The player logged a full hour before rendering that verdict. Priced at $5.99, it too shows zero concurrent players, with Steam tracking a -100% change from its previous snapshot.

Both games landed on the New Releases chart. Both are functionally invisible.

The red flags stack up fast if you know where to look. A multiplayer-only game with no player base and no solo fallback is unplayable by design at launch. A day-one discount signals uncertainty from the publisher — or an attempt to juice impulse buys before word gets out. A single negative review isn’t statistically meaningful on its own, but when that review identifies missing core features and the player count is literally zero, the picture clarifies.

Steam’s chart algorithm surfaces new releases regardless of quality. These two happened to launch the same day, flop the same way, and illustrate the same lesson: the New Releases tab is not a recommendation. It’s a firehose. Sort by player count and recent reviews before you spend even four dollars.

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