Forget the new Sonics: Sega is ecstatic about a 6-year-old rerelease

Yesterday, publisher Sega released two new Sonic games, and the early word doesn’t sound great. But that’s OK, because Sega has two of the best-selling new releases on Steam.

Sega’s strategy role-playing game Valkyria Chronicles is the third best-selling game on Valve’s digital-distribution service for PC games. The $20 re-release is actually performing better than Assassin’s Creed: Unity, and it’s just behind Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare and Sega’s own Football Manager 2014. And Sega isn’t hiding that Valkyria Chronicles is wildly outperforming its expectations.

“We would like to take this opportunity to thank all the fans for their support in the phenomenal success of this launch,” Sega of Europe vice president of commercial publishing John Clark said. “We’re also delighted at the response from the Steam community, which indicates that newcomers to the series are finding it as enchanting and engaging as those who have played it before.”

Valkyria Chronicles first debuted in 2008 on the PlayStation 3. It takes place in an alternate-history 1935 Europe, and the events of the game echo World War II.

When Sega first released Valkyria Chronicles, critics loved its deep and original gameplay, but it did not catch on with an audience in the United States. Sega went on to release two sequels for the PlayStation Portable, but the franchise went dormant after 2011’s Valkyria Chronicles III.

The franchise’s resurgence on PC could reinvigorate the series. In recent years, Sega has consolidated its efforts into just a few franchises with a focus specifically on PC games. In June 2012, after laying off a huge number of employees in its Western operations, Sega said it would dedicate its resources to Sonic the Hedgehog, Total War, Football Manager, and Aliens. But now Valkyria Chronicles is proving that Sega has other properties that people are willing to spend money on.

We’ve asked Sega about the possibility of bringing more Valkyria Chronicles games over to Steam as well as the future of the franchise, and we’ll update this post with any new information.