📊Steam Check 9- Your daily Steam briefing, updated every day. We bring you everything from real-time concurrent player counts and global/Korean top-selling charts to the latest news, new releases, and updates in one convenient summary.
With the World Cup season in full swing, soccer games are rolling out massive discounts, aiming to bring the global festival atmosphere into the digital arena.
The most notable title is EA Sports FC26. EA is offering a 80% discount on the game until the 26th. With a recent reduction in the base price, FC26 is currently available for less than ₩5k. Furthermore, they have launched a ‘World Game’ update featuring a tournament with national teams. This update, released on May 28, added an international tournament mode featuring 48 teams starting from the 4th.
However, as the name ‘World Game’ suggests, EA can no longer use the official World Cup name or logo following the expiration of its FIFA license. Consequently, for some countries where licensing agreements with national football associations have not been secured, player names, stats, and face scans are missing.
If you want to fully immerse yourself in the authentic World Cup experience, you can play the latest installment in the Football Manager series, FM26. It holds the official FIFA World Cup 2026 license, featuring authentic broadcast graphics, tournament branding, official match balls, and uniforms. Discounts have also launched across all platforms to coincide with the start of the World Cup. You can lead the South Korean national team—fresh off a thrilling 2-1 comeback victory against the Czech Republic in their opening group stage match—and challenge for the title.
ISSUE | Today’s News
■ DLC | ‘Hearts of Iron IV’ Sales Boosted by New Expansion Release
Paradox Interactive has brought various eras to life through strategy simulations like Crusader Kings, Europa Universalis, and Victoria. Among their historical simulations, Hearts of Iron IV—which covers the period closest to the modern day—has climbed the sales charts following the release of a new expansion. To celebrate, the base game is currently 80% off, and players can enjoy it for free until 2:00 AM on the 16th via a free weekend trial. It is the perfect time to experience the fun of Hearts of Iron.
■ Discount | Final Fantasy VII Series Hits All-Time High Discount, Climbing Popularity Charts
SQUARE ENIX has kicked off a sale for the Final Fantasy series. The Final Fantasy VII Remake series, which recently revealed the title of the final entry in its trilogy, is standing out on the Steam charts. The first installment, Final Fantasy VII Remake Intergrade, is 65% off, while Final Fantasy VII REMAKE is 60% off—both reaching their deepest discounts to date. The heightened interest following the reveal of the final title, combined with these discounts, seems to be driving actual purchases. Currently, the first game ranks 5th in global sales, while the second ranks 9th.
NEW | Upcoming & Updates
■ Release | Unrailed 2: Back on Track
Unrailed, which captured hearts with the simple premise of laying train tracks with friends, has officially exited Early Access with its 1 release. The sequel introduces branching story paths for varied gameplay and a revamped creative mode for building custom maps. Players can also look forward to more intense action with new boss biomes, boss battles, and a 8-player versus mode.
■ Release | Frog Squad
Paul Croft, co-founder of Mediatonic—the studio behind the hit slapstick battle royale Fall Guys—is back with Frog Squad, the debut title from his new studio, Panic Stations. The development team includes key figures like lead game designer Joe Walsh, character and visual director Daniel Hwang, and social community lead Oliver Hindle. Unlike the competitive nature of Fall Guys, this game features up to 8 players cooperating to raid sewers. The main mechanic, tongue manipulation, is powered by a physics engine, leading to unexpected, bizarre, and comedic situations.
[Read Original]
PakarPBN
A Private Blog Network (PBN) is a collection of websites that are controlled by a single individual or organization and used primarily to build backlinks to a “money site” in order to influence its ranking in search engines such as Google. The core idea behind a PBN is based on the importance of backlinks in Google’s ranking algorithm. Since Google views backlinks as signals of authority and trust, some website owners attempt to artificially create these signals through a controlled network of sites.
In a typical PBN setup, the owner acquires expired or aged domains that already have existing authority, backlinks, and history. These domains are rebuilt with new content and hosted separately, often using different IP addresses, hosting providers, themes, and ownership details to make them appear unrelated. Within the content published on these sites, links are strategically placed that point to the main website the owner wants to rank higher. By doing this, the owner attempts to pass link equity (also known as “link juice”) from the PBN sites to the target website.
The purpose of a PBN is to give the impression that the target website is naturally earning links from multiple independent sources. If done effectively, this can temporarily improve keyword rankings, increase organic visibility, and drive more traffic from search results.