PS5 Top 40 — Valorant popularity spikes by 51% with surprise free drop In our exclusive PS5 Top 40 chart, Valorant's full release has stormed to the top ten with a 51% player count rise after the surprise full release.Kes Eylers-Stephenson Published 05 Aug 2024 FollowtopicsChartKes Eylers-Stephenson Collecting Valorant trophies and having intense gunfights has exploded in popularity this week, according to our sample of 3.1 million active PSN accounts (not just TrueTrophies accounts, courtesy of GameInsights). We're dissecting the PS5 Top 40 after Valorant's full release which surprised everybody last week. That said, no one will be surprised to see it on the PlayStation Chart!PS5 gets free-to-play shooter Valorant in surprise dropWell, this is it folks — Riot has officially released free-to-play arena shooter Valorant in a surprise for PS5. From the three days since the official release on Friday, August 2, 2024, the game's player count has spiked by 51.1%. That bump has brought about a push up the chart, with a six-place rise into #9. I'm excited to see its second week so we can judge how well it does after a full week!Valorant is the stand-out in the chart this week, but I don't want to dismiss a few smaller movements happening. The shooter supplanted EA Sports College Football 25 (now in #10) which has been on a real hot streak. I don't think that EA will be worried though — that sports game is getting on just fine and looks set to outperform Madden NFL 25 this year.Helldivers 2 is holding ground against the swarths of new releases in the live-service space in the #21 position. Players will be waiting for the huge Escalation for Freedom update which promises to provide some game-changing additions. I think we'll see some pretty massive leaps for one of the best PS5 multiplayer games out there once that update lands!Finally, I want to call attention to Asphalt Legends Unite, which I mentioned last week when it made a debut in #33. It's since dropped five positions to #38 in only its second week despite being a free-to-play game. Why? Well, because it's bad. Someone at Gameloft won't be happy!With all of that out of the way, you should check out the deep dive we did into the biggest games on PS Plus in 2024 so far! What do you think of the chart this week? Enticing? Here are the top 40 most popular PS5 and PS4 games for the week ending Sunday, August 4, 2024.Top 40 PS5 and PS4 games (week ending Sunday, August 4, 2024)PositionGamePublisherLast week1 FortniteEpic Games12 EA SPORTS FC 24Electronic Arts23 Call of Duty: Modern Warfare IIActivision34 Grand Theft Auto VRockstar Games55 Elden RingFromSoftware46 RobloxRoblox67 Minecraft: PlayStation 4 Edition (2)Mojang Studios78 Rocket LeaguePsyonix89 VALORANTRiot Games1510 EA SPORTS College Football 25Electronic Arts911 The First DescendantNEXON1012 Overwatch 2Blizzard Entertainment1113 Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six SiegeUbisoft1214 Destiny 2Bungie1315 Apex LegendsElectronic Arts1416 NBA 2K242K Games1717 Dead by Daylight 1/2Behaviour Interactive1618 Red Dead Redemption 2Rockstar Games2019 Zenless Zone ZeromiHoYo1820 Gran Turismo 7Sony Interactive Entertainment1921 HELLDIVERS 2Sony Interactive Entertainment2122 Genshin ImpactCognosphere2223 Astro's PlayroomSony Interactive Entertainment3824 Fall GuysEpic Games2425 Among UsMaximum Games2326 Mortal Kombat 1Warner Bros. Games2627 Borderlands 32K Games2928 Marvel's Spider-Man 2Sony Interactive Entertainment3429 TEKKEN 8Bandai Namco Entertainment2530 Call of Duty: Black Ops IIIActivision3231 Ghost of TsushimaSony Interactive Entertainment3132 Remnant IITHQ Nordic2733 XDefiantUbisoft3034 MultiVersusWarner Bros. Games2835 WarframeDigital Extremes3536 NHL 24Electronic Arts3637 Baldur's Gate 3Spike ChunsoftRE38 Asphalt Legends UniteGameloft3339 Honkai: Star RailCognosphereRE40 FINAL FANTASY VII REBIRTHSquare Enix39Chart compiled using gameplay data from over 3.1 million active PlayStation accounts (not just TrueTrophies accounts). Chart information is copyright GameInsights. Regarding this data:When an account opens a game, this is registered as a game being played. Accounts can only register a game once per week.Our data is good for suggesting general trends — we represent this using percentages, not numbers.Related stories: Call of Duty's PS5 player count jumps 136% after Black Ops 6 launch Helldivers 2's big October 2024 patch boosts PS5 player count by 29% Best PS5 FPS games - top 23 first-person shooters (November 2024) Poll: Which PlayStation Studios games will be the best of 2024? Helldivers 2 loses 59% of returning PS5 players as DLC flops Chart Written by Kes Eylers-StephensonEditor Kes is our resident expert in PlayStation and Sony news. He writes about PS5 games like LEGO Horizon Adventures, Assassin’s Creed Shadows, Kingdom Come Deliverance II, Concord, and Death Stranding 2 using experience from years of PlayStation gaming. He also covers PS Plus news, as well as his favorite games — The Witcher 3, God of War, and The Last of Us — before an evening swim.