Steam’s Surprise End-Of-Year Hit Is A Psychological Horror Game About An Anime Girlfriend

Steam’s latest mini-sensation has arrived and it’s called MiSide. The meta thriller in the vein of Doki Doki Literature Club has already racked up one of the highest ratings on Valve’s storefront just a couple weeks after its completely under-the-radar launch, thanks in part to streams by Mark “Markiplier” Fischbach and others.

If you’re just starting to come back online after the holiday break, you might be surprised to learn that 2024 was hiding one last Steam hit up its digital sleeve. MiSide is an anime horror game about a programmer who finds himself magically transported into the world of a cute, minigame-filled mobile sim that’s home to his virtual love interest, Mita. The premise is a mashup of visual novel and cozy walking sim elements that eventually goes to some much weirder places and begins breaking the fourth wall in the process.

Markiplier streamed the game a couple of days after it came out and, weeks later, the VOD has accumulated over 3 million views. Special edd, xQc, and others have since reacted to the game as well. YouTube shorts and TikTok are also flooded with MiSide reaction videos and Mita fan cams. As a result, the game has over 43,000 reviews on Steam with a positive rating just a fraction higher than Balatro’s, making it one of the highest-ranked games on Valve’s storefront, at least for now.

MiSide’s success didn’t completely come out of nowhere. A very polished demo was released on itch.io over a year ago and quickly acquired fans. At this point, the comments page is filled with people sharing YouTube videos of their own playthroughs of the unsettling, creepypasta-infused, twist-filled story. In some ways it’s perfect catnip for the user-powered Steam algorithm: psychological horror + anime waifu + social media virality lottery = Steam’s first early winter breakout.

“Before the game’s release, we never expected MiSide to be so popular,” the game’s developers wrote on Steam last week alongside an update adding a photo mode and other tweaks. “We are very grateful to every player who supports us! In addition to continuing to polish the game and produce the planned content, we will also carefully consider future plans, which will cover all aspects of the game, both inside and outside the game. We will share new plans with everyone as soon as they are available!”