The Game Census
Waves cover art

Waves

Squid In A Box Ltd · 2011-11-16

Steam

ActionIndie

Modes: Single player · Perspectives: Bird view / Isometric

Releases: Nov 16, 2011 (PC (Microsoft Windows))

Waves is an Arcade Twin-Stick Shooter that's all about High Scores. Build your combo and drop bombs in pursuit of Leaderboard dominance over seven game-modes!

Waves is an Action, Indie game released in 2011, free-to-play, with an estimated 50,000 .. 100,000 owners and Overwhelmingly Positive (95% of 1568 reviews).

1
playing now
95%
positive of 1.6k reviews
Overwhelmingly Positive
steam's rating (official)
50,000–100,000
owners (SteamSpy est.)
80/100
critic score (1 outlets, IGDB)
90/100
IGDB user rating (4 ratings)
gold
deck/linux tier (ProtonDB)
Verified
Steam Deck (Valve)
SteamOS: Playable
Free
steam price (US)

1 players in-game as of 2026-10-14 17:00 UTC (census sample)

Set in a Neo-Cyberspace arena your system is being overrun by bugs, errors and viruses and the only solution is to kill every rogue process before it kills you.(Storyline via IGDB)

Health check

Quietly active
  • · 1 players in-game at the last census sample.
  • · 30 reviews in the last 8 weeks (~4/week).
  • · Review velocity down 32% vs the prior 8 weeks.
  • · Current weekly pace is under 5% of the all-time peak week (170 reviews).
  • · Top 12% of 27,675 Action games in the census by review count.

Health tier since 2026-08-31

All-time low: $0.49 at Steam (2021-03-08) · bundled 3×via IsThereAnyDeal

Review momentum

PositiveNegative
16616620172026Week of 2017-07-01: 7 positiveWeek of 2017-07-01: 3 negativeWeek of 2017-08-01: 5 positiveWeek of 2017-08-01: 1 negativeWeek of 2017-09-01: 4 positiveWeek of 2017-09-01: 2 negativeWeek of 2017-10-01: 5 positiveWeek of 2017-10-01: 1 negativeWeek of 2017-11-01: 6 positiveWeek of 2017-11-01: 2 negativeWeek of 2017-12-01: 4 positiveWeek of 2018-01-01: 3 positiveWeek of 2018-01-01: 1 negativeWeek of 2018-02-01: 4 positiveWeek of 2018-03-01: 2 positiveWeek of 2018-04-01: 3 positiveWeek of 2018-05-01: 3 positiveWeek of 2018-06-01: 6 positiveWeek of 2018-06-01: 1 negativeWeek of 2018-07-01: 1 positiveWeek of 2018-08-01: 4 positiveWeek of 2018-09-01: 1 positiveWeek of 2018-09-01: 1 negativeWeek of 2018-10-01: 1 positiveWeek of 2018-11-01: 10 positiveWeek of 2018-11-01: 1 negativeWeek of 2018-12-01: 3 positiveWeek of 2019-01-01: 2 positiveWeek of 2019-01-01: 1 negativeWeek of 2019-02-01: 4 positiveWeek of 2019-03-01: 1 positiveWeek of 2019-04-01: 3 positiveWeek of 2019-05-01: 2 positiveWeek of 2019-06-01: 10 positiveWeek of 2019-07-01: 6 positiveWeek of 2019-08-01: 2 positiveWeek of 2019-09-01: 1 positiveWeek of 2019-10-01: 2 positiveWeek of 2019-11-01: 3 positiveWeek of 2019-11-01: 2 negativeWeek of 2019-12-01: 4 positiveWeek of 2019-12-01: 1 negativeWeek of 2020-01-01: 1 positiveWeek of 2020-02-01: 5 positiveWeek of 2020-03-01: 3 positiveWeek of 2020-04-01: 2 positiveWeek of 2020-05-01: 6 positiveWeek of 2020-06-01: 3 positiveWeek of 2020-07-01: 3 positiveWeek of 2020-07-01: 1 negativeWeek of 2020-08-01: 5 positiveWeek of 2020-09-01: 2 positiveWeek of 2020-10-01: 3 positiveWeek of 2020-11-01: 2 positiveWeek of 2020-11-01: 2 negativeWeek of 2020-12-01: 3 positiveWeek of 2021-01-01: 2 positiveWeek of 2021-02-01: 1 positiveWeek of 2021-03-01: 7 positiveWeek of 2021-04-01: 2 positiveWeek of 2021-07-01: 1 positiveWeek of 2021-08-01: 3 positiveWeek of 2021-10-01: 2 positiveWeek of 2021-11-01: 2 positiveWeek of 2022-01-01: 1 positiveWeek of 2022-02-01: 2 positiveWeek of 2022-03-01: 1 positiveWeek of 2022-04-01: 1 positiveWeek of 2022-07-01: 2 positiveWeek of 2022-08-01: 166 positiveWeek of 2022-08-01: 4 negativeWeek of 2022-09-01: 50 positiveWeek of 2022-10-01: 22 positiveWeek of 2022-10-01: 1 negativeWeek of 2022-11-01: 29 positiveWeek of 2022-12-01: 18 positiveWeek of 2022-12-01: 1 negativeWeek of 2023-01-01: 14 positiveWeek of 2023-02-01: 8 positiveWeek of 2023-03-01: 10 positiveWeek of 2023-03-01: 1 negativeWeek of 2023-04-01: 7 positiveWeek of 2023-04-01: 1 negativeWeek of 2023-05-01: 11 positiveWeek of 2023-06-01: 6 positiveWeek of 2023-07-01: 11 positiveWeek of 2023-07-01: 3 negativeWeek of 2023-08-01: 5 positiveWeek of 2023-09-01: 3 positiveWeek of 2023-10-01: 2 positiveWeek of 2023-11-01: 3 positiveWeek of 2023-12-01: 5 positiveWeek of 2024-01-01: 5 positiveWeek of 2024-01-01: 1 negativeWeek of 2024-02-01: 7 positiveWeek of 2024-03-01: 9 positiveWeek of 2024-04-01: 3 positiveWeek of 2024-05-01: 10 positiveWeek of 2024-05-01: 1 negativeWeek of 2024-06-01: 5 positiveWeek of 2024-06-01: 1 negativeWeek of 2024-07-01: 6 positiveWeek of 2024-08-01: 6 positiveWeek of 2024-09-01: 5 positiveWeek of 2024-10-01: 3 positiveWeek of 2024-11-01: 5 positiveWeek of 2024-11-01: 1 negativeWeek of 2024-12-01: 7 positiveWeek of 2024-12-01: 1 negativeWeek of 2025-01-01: 6 positiveWeek of 2025-01-01: 1 negativeWeek of 2025-02-01: 4 positiveWeek of 2025-03-01: 6 positiveWeek of 2025-04-01: 4 positiveWeek of 2025-04-01: 2 negativeWeek of 2025-05-01: 3 positiveWeek of 2025-06-01: 3 positiveWeek of 2025-06-01: 1 negativeWeek of 2025-07-01: 11 positiveWeek of 2025-08-01: 7 positiveWeek of 2025-09-01: 5 positiveWeek of 2025-10-01: 5 positiveWeek of 2025-11-01: 3 positiveWeek of 2025-12-01: 2 positiveWeek of 2025-12-01: 1 negativeWeek of 2026-01-01: 3 positiveWeek of 2026-02-01: 4 positiveWeek of 2026-03-01: 4 positiveWeek of 2026-04-01: 6 positiveWeek of 2026-05-01: 4 positiveWeek of 2026-06-01: 3 positiveWeek of 2026-06-01: 1 negativeWeek of 2026-07-01: 2 positiveWeek of 2026-08-01: 7 positive
Weekly review counts (Steam review histogram). Positive above the line, negative below.

Players online

2802026-09-15 02:00 — 0 players2026-09-16 11:00 — 3 players2026-09-17 18:00 — 2 players2026-09-19 02:00 — 28 players2026-09-20 09:00 — 28 players2026-09-21 17:00 — 27 players2026-09-23 00:00 — 3 players2026-09-24 08:00 — 0 players2026-09-25 15:00 — 2 players2026-09-26 23:00 — 2 players2026-09-28 06:00 — 0 players2026-09-29 14:00 — 0 players2026-09-30 21:00 — 0 players2026-10-02 05:00 — 1 players2026-10-03 12:00 — 1 players2026-10-04 21:00 — 0 players2026-10-06 04:00 — 0 players2026-10-07 12:00 — 2 players2026-10-08 19:00 — 1 players2026-10-10 03:00 — 1 players2026-10-11 10:00 — 1 players2026-10-12 18:00 — 0 players2026-10-14 01:00 — 0 players2026-10-14 17:00 — 1 players
Concurrent players, hourly average, last 30 days (census samples).

Price history

$4.99$0.002015-01-012022-08-062015-01-01 — best price $1.992015-04-02 — best price $4.992015-06-11 — best price $2.012015-10-19 — best price $0.992015-11-25 — best price $0.992016-01-18 — best price $0.992016-03-21 — best price $0.992016-06-23 — best price $0.992016-08-18 — best price $0.992016-09-19 — best price $0.992016-12-22 — best price $0.992017-06-22 — best price $0.992017-09-25 — best price $0.992017-11-22 — best price $0.992018-02-19 — best price $0.992018-06-21 — best price $0.992018-10-08 — best price $0.992018-12-20 — best price $0.992019-04-01 — best price $0.992019-07-29 — best price $2.492019-10-28 — best price $2.492019-12-09 — best price $2.492020-01-23 — best price $2.492020-03-30 — best price $2.492020-05-12 — best price $4.492020-05-25 — best price $4.992020-08-17 — best price $4.992020-11-23 — best price $4.992021-01-05 — best price $4.992021-07-08 — best price $4.992021-11-01 — best price $4.992022-01-05 — best price $4.992022-06-06 — best price $4.992022-08-06 — best price $0.00
Lowest recorded price across tracked stores, per day (census snapshots).

Completion

54
achievements tracked
51.9%
earned "Kill them all!"
7.5%
median achievement earned by

Global achievement rates from Steam.

Details

WindowsFull controller supportSingle-playerSteam AchievementsFull controller supportSteam Trading CardsSteam CloudStatsSteam LeaderboardsFamily Sharing1 DLC

Post-launch support: 1 DLC released, first 2014-01-31 (Steam store data)

Console footprint

PlatformPlayers trackedCompletionTrophies/achievements
Steam (Steam)5,7381%54

Players tracked by Exophase (achievement/trophy trackers) — a sample of the player base, not total sales.

Player tags

RetroActionArcadeShooterAbstractColorfulTop-DownCyberpunkBullet HellBullet Time

Census log

Computed from census-recorded observations only — dates are observation dates.

Players also track

Nuclear ThroneNo Man's SkyUnclaimed WorldGET EVENZigguratUse Your WordsPikunikuDream Alone

Similarity via IGDB.

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