Valheim went live on Steam exactly five weeks ago, and it's been on fire ever since. Iron Gate's Viking survival sim rocketed up the charts, hitting 5 million copies sold after just one month in Early Access and surpassing huge titles like Dota 2 in terms of concurrent active players. Steam reviews for Valheim exude a palpable sense of awe and relief. Players regularly compare the feeling to the first time they played Minecraft, marveling at the game's scope, depth and atmosphere, and questioning how a team of just five developers managed to pack such an engrossing experience into a 1GB download. Valheim sets players loose in an original realm of Viking purgatory, a vast, procedurally generated world filled with mythical Norse beasts, high seas, hunting and crafting.

It has been a rare old summer of football. England's heroic – or at least, much better than expected – efforts in the World Cup were followed by three weeks or so of cold turkey, with nothing but the opaque machinations of the transfer window to keep us occupied. But already, the season has resumed, in all its relentless glory. If you want to join in but were born with two left feet, flex your thumbs instead with one of these games – the six best on the market right now. Video game football isn't just about pretending to be Harry Kane or Pep Guardiola: some of these take a strikingly original approach to the beautiful game.

Chris Hecker, the creator of SpyParty, is smiling and gesturing wildly over the open lid of a laptop showcasing the game's six new, upgraded maps. After 10 years of development, SpyParty is finally going to land on Steam Early Access on April 12th, and Hecker is barely containing a cacophony of emotions -- not all of them bad. "That's fucking crazy and I'm terrified, like literally, abject terrified, and my anxiety level is through the fucking roof," he says. "But I'm excited too, and we'll see. There's a whole bunch of things I'm concerned about with that and excited about that. Like the fact that I have the best online competitive gaming community ever."