Drug-dealing sim Schedule I rivals Assassin's Creed Shadows.
(Image credit: TVGS)
Indie games are going head-to-head with AAA titles and winning, if Steam's confirmed 'most popular indie game of 2025' is anything to go by. Created by solo developer TVGS, Schedule I has sold an estimated two million copies on Steam.
These figures put the drug kingpin sim in the same revered company as Assassin's Creed Shadows, and even beating Stalker 2: Heart of Chornobyl, which has sold around one million copies. In fact, peak player numbers on Steam put Schedule I ahead of many AAA games in terms of popularity, including Sid Meier's Civilization VII, Kingdom Come: Deliverance II, and the incredible Split Fiction.
At launch on 24 March, Schedule I immediately became the second most popular game on Steam, just behind Monster Hunter Wilds with its 1.3 million peak concurrent users.
(Image credit: TVGS)
Steam's most popular game
The success of Schedule 1, which has been nicknamed a 'Walter White simulator' based on the classic HBO show Breaking Bad, the game sees players build a drug empire from the ground up, from escaping cops on a skateboard to developing new meth recipes.
The success comes down to the accessible and ironically addictive mini-games mixed with a co-op mode that enables one player to be the cook and the other the street dealer; be Walter White or Jesse Pinkman.
(Image credit: TVGS)
Reddit user Intelligent-Cable-50 summed up why Schedule I is proving so, well… addictive: "Do you like programming? Do you like simulators? Do you like running a business? Then yes it’s REALLY good. Especially for this price point. Just a single developer named Tyler made the game and oh my god it’s phenomenal. Even the music is amazing. Amazes me it’s just one dude that did all this. My man and I are up until 4am playing this game and he’s never even done drugs before. He somehow likes it more than me, a pothead."
Get started in game dev
Schedule I is the goal for many indie devs channelling creativity to make the dream of releasing a successful game. If you want to read more inspirational insights on creating video games, read our interviewers with the devs and artists behind Wax Heads, Wanderstop and the Houdini-made Wheel World.
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Ian Dean is Editor, Digital Arts & 3D at Creative Bloq, and the former editor of many leading magazines. These titles included ImagineFX, 3D World and video game titles Play and Official PlayStation Magazine. Ian launched Xbox magazine X360 and edited PlayStation World. For Creative Bloq, Ian combines his experiences to bring the latest news on digital art, VFX and video games and tech, and in his spare time he doodles in Procreate, ArtRage, and Rebelle while finding time to play Xbox and PS5.
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