Welcome back to the Fancensus Spotlight, the only place on LinkedIn where we pull back the curtain on the strategies that keep certain games glued to the top of digital stores while others slip out of view. Think of this as your weekly edge against the competition, clear signals you can use to sharpen planning, rethink how you fight for digital shelf space, and turn “nice little launch” into “impossible to ignore” in an increasingly crowded market. Before we dive in let's recap what a "Flare Score" is for our new readers.
Flare Score is Fancensus’ proprietary metric that summarises how strongly a game is performing across key visibility channels, normalised to a scale of 0–100. More specifically, Flare looks at multiple quantitative and qualitative signals from areas such as press coverage, social media activity, and retailer/storefront discoverability into a single comparable score.
Right, onwards to the data you're here for.
Console Discoverability – Indie Titles Only
On Xbox, indie visibility was driven by a blend of aggressive discounts, Game Pass promotion, and smart use of themed campaigns. DayZ Frostline led the charge with a 100 Flare score, appearing across the home page, deals page, and general store pages as part of the Beyond Countdown sale with a 33% discount. Hollow Knight: Silksong followed at 67 Flare score, pushed by Game Pass Ultimate promotions that regularly surfaced on the main Xbox home page and Game Pass banner. Choo‑Choo Charles (57 Flare score) and Untitled Goose Game (47 Flare score) both benefited from the ID@Xbox sale, which offered a “buy one, get two free” deal and secured them home‑page exposure; Choo‑Choo Charles also earned solo placements in the “Top Paid” section. MIO: Memories In Orbit, newly released last week and already enjoying strong critical praise, secured a 53 Flare score by featuring in the “Recently Added” Game Pass row and in “New Games” sections on the Xbox home page.
On PlayStation, Blue Prince dominated indie discoverability with a perfect 100 Flare Score. Its imagery fronted the “Brain Teasers” category, which appeared in banners on both the Latest and Collections pages. Hollow Knight: Silksong (43 Flare score) remained highly visible through Editors’ Choice “Games of the Year” banners on Latest and Collections, appearing alongside Clair Obscur and Death Stranding 2. Unbeatable (23 Flare score) stepped into the spotlight as the face of the “Monthly Picks” category, gaining additional Latest‑page placements. Core Keeper (17 Flare score), newly added to January’s monthly games, was highlighted in PlayStation Plus adverts with major banner placements across the subscriptions page. Where Winds Meet (10%) secured several prominent banners in the “What’s Hot” section of the Latest page, riding momentum from its recent 1.017 update a week earlier.
Press & Social Flare – Upcoming Products
Crisol: Theater of Idols announced its 10th February release date with a cinematic and gameplay trailer that pushed it into fourth place in press activity for the week. Notably, the version uploaded to the official PlayStation channels out‑performed both media outlets and Blumhouse Games’ own channel, underlining the power of platform‑holder amplification. Nioh 3 climbed thanks to a new 17‑minute gameplay video ahead of its 6th February launch, showcasing dual combat styles, fast ninja and slower samurai and newly open environments, while reassuring fans that major boss battles remain the series’ core. The IGN and Team Ninja Studio uploads each reached around 120k views.
Poppy Playtime Chapter 5, due 18th February, spiked in visibility after an ARG puzzle dropped last week, revealing never‑before‑seen footage from Playtime Co.’s history and exposing the backstory of CatNap (Subject 1188). Fan reactions and theory videos propelled it to first place on YouTube and TikTok; one TikTok from runawayrabbits cleared 1.2 million views. Code Vein II continued the sustained build toward it's 30th January launch, leveraging a character creator demo that gave streamers and creators fresh content. Influencer JillCrofts Twitch stream of the demo that topped 20k views. New trailers such as “Revenant Springs” and “The Retainer of Idris” offered glimpses of fresh areas and enemies, keeping social feeds busy. All of that activity set the stage for this week’s standout, Yakuza Kiwami 3 & Dark Ties.
Spotlight title: Yakuza Kiwami 3 & Dark Ties
Yakuza Kiwami 3 & Dark Ties is scheduled to launch on 12th February for PC and consoles, with the story last week all about its free demo and the reaction it generated. Released on 21st January, the demo lets players try both the Yakuza Kiwami 3 and Dark Ties games ahead of launch, accompanied by a trailer to spotlight the opportunity. Early Steam feedback has seen comments targeting the updated graphics and combat, with social posts drawing direct comparisons to the original version. A separate trailer showcasing Kiryu’s combat was also released, and leaks about changes to the ending of Yakuza Kiwami 3 versus the original stirred further debate about how faithfully the remake handles core story beats.
On social platforms, the brand’s core strengths still shone through. On Facebook, posts from the YakuzaGame account performed well, particularly short gameplay clips like Karaoke minigame moments such as “Kamurocho Rhapsody,” which leaned into the series’ trademark tonal whiplash. Karaoke content translated nicely to TikTok too, with reaction reposts such as Skydive2314’s video surpassing 300k views. An influencer demo‑announcement clip on TikTok by assoprafitasoficial hit over 435k views, while PlayStation’s own X post announcing the demo reached about 173k views, highlighting how both community and platform‑holder voices contributed to awareness. Twitch streams of the demo performed strongly overall, with notable coverage from creators like Maximilian Dood, whose stream drew more than 126k views as viewers tuned in to see the “new” Kiwami 3 in action and judge the changes for themselves. On YouTube, there were hundreds of videos covering Yakuza Kiwami 3 & Dark Ties, with SEGA America’s “Kiryu Combat Gameplay” trailer hitting 36k views.
This week’s data highlights both sides of pre‑launch visibility. On one hand, smart placements and promotions keep indies like DayZ Frostline, Blue Prince, and MIO: Memories In Orbit in front of players via themed sales, Game Pass, and curated collections. On the other, Yakuza Kiwami 3 & Dark Ties shows that demos can supercharge awareness and conversation but also expose friction points that need rapid, thoughtful response. For teams planning launches in 2026, treating discoverability, demos, and community reactions as a continuous feedback loop not separate phases, will be crucial to turning attention spikes into sustained momentum.
