Initial scrolling of the Steam Summer Sale seems pretty lackluster, but digging through the comments sections in other threads, a few gems have stood out, and it doesn’t appear we have a thread dedicated to this yet, so post what you think are the best deals here!
Not mandatory ofc, but it’d be helpful if…
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One game per top level post, so comments stemming from it are focused on on just it.
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Hyperlink the game title to its Store Page
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Include both the normal and sale price / %off
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Include a short blurb about the game - if it’s one you’ve played before, what did you like about it? If you’re diving in blind, what grabbed your attention?
Good hunt’n!
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The Witcher 3 - Wild Hunt
$39.99$3.99 (90% off)If you’ve somehow managed to avoid Witcher until now, it’s a dark medieval fantasy, 3rd person, open world RPG based on
NorseSlavic mythology. Lots of political intrigue, choices that actually impact outcomes in game. Fantastic voice acting, story, soundtrack, and combat/gameplay mechanics. This is one of the best games on the market - if you don’t already have it, now’s the time! There are also two DLCs that are each the size and scope of an entire standalone game - don’t miss those!Also available DRM free on GOG for the same price.
(shoutout to @[email protected] for GOG intel)
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Once you get a hold on dodging/parrying/etc, you’ll feel like a damn ninja, especially on harder difficulties; but leading up to that, yeah combat is… OK. Also don’t miss out of experimenting with different builds - one of my favorites optimized using bombs, which later into it makes you a walking B-52 - fun build if you enjoy clearing trash via a wave of pure chaos, then mopping up the stronger guys by way of the sword.
And yeah, the whole package is what counts here: Witcher 3 is a fantastic all around game. It isn’t without it’s imperfections, but they are barely noticeable amidst the tsunami of ridiculously high quality you’ll be hit with from all the other features.
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It was never a strong combat game imo. It’s a fantastic game despite the combat, not because of the combat.
Good fish! I will download it right away.
Just one question, I have never played any of The Witcher series game. Would I be okay in jumping directly into the 3rd part?
Witcher 2’s controls are a bit janky, but it’s a solid game in and of itself for the story alone; if you can stomach some pretty bad mechanics to enjoy an otherwise decent product, I’d say start at #2.
Witcher 1 is… so bad it’s kinda comical. I’d just pull up a story summary of Witcher 1 on youtube and call it a day. If you’re a masochist, go ahead and give the actual game a whirl; but I’d recommend modding the snot out of it to at least make your character OP as fuck, allowing you to mostly skip the god-awful combat. But even then, the only selling point is the story, which again you can just pull up on YouTube.
That said, you can dive into 3 with zero knowledge of the previous two and be just fine. There are things that will go over your head, but nothing significant.
Subnautica
$29.99$9.89 (67% off)Sci-fi survival builder: you’re on a massive spacecraft that ends up crash landing on an ocean planet; your goal is to figure out wtf happened and find a way off the planet. This game is 80% feel-good tropical diving simulator; and 20% thalasaphobic deepsea horror. This has become one of my go-to “idk what to play” games that I keep returning to for a nice digital tropical vacation… with a dash of fleeing in terror from, uh… spoilers. No really though, if you don’t already know this game’s story, DO NOT start looking up videos and posts etc about it - just buy it and dive in.
The audio in this game really seals the deal. You’re just swimming along collecting resources and hear a terrifying roar. But you look around and can’t see where it came from… Do you keep going or nope the fuck outta there and go take a breather in your life pod for 20 mins while your heart rate comes back down?
This is one of my personal favorites and the one that introduced me to the crafting/survival genre. I highly recommend it.
Same here!
Do you have another recommendation? Preferably something with multiplayer and would be even cooler if it has a server I can host!
I really liked Grounded.
I haven’t tried it yet, but Abiotic Factor looks pretty fun and has great reviews. It’s early access though.
Abiotic Factor
Hadn’t heard of that one… it’s like a survival builder set in Half Life 1 lol. Wishlisted!
Just to throw a few other options on the pile:
- Valheim is more combat oriented, but is probably my favourite survival crafting game after Subnautica. You’re playing vikings trying to earn their way into Valhalla. I die a lot. Very fun.
- Planet Crafter is more chill, more jank, and more linear, but it’s a survival crafting game that is clearly heavily inspired by Subnautica. You are sent to a mars-like planet to terraform it as part of your prison sentence. It’s a great podcast game, just build and explore and watch numbers go up.
- Less on the survival crafting side of things, the environmental storytelling is also really good in Outer Wilds and Return of the Obra Dinn. Very different games, but they were actually what I went to after Subnautica to scratch that itch and it worked weirdly well.
Not multiplayer, but Green Hell is also fantastic.
The Forest is a good multiplayer survival crafting game, with a pretty cool story. The sequel is also already out I think.
Should I also get the Below Zero bundle?
Depends on what you want. If you want more of Subnautica story then get it. If you want more Subnautica style going into the depths, Below Zero doesn’t go that deep and about half the game is actually above water. While I loved Subnautica I felt pretty disappointed by Below Zero.
Satisfactory
$29.99$14.99 (50% off)Sci-fi, you’re dropped down to a lush alien planet to do what humans do best: strip all of its natural resources! Combat is limited, but boils down to fighting off wild animals - the main gist of the game is building and optimizing things like miners/conveyor belts/smeltors/assemblers/etc to automate the pillaging of the environment with increasing efficiency… which admittedly sounds more like work than play, but this title caught me a bit off guard with how fun and - true to its name - satisfying it is play.
They’re also planning on raising the full price shortly to $40, most likely with the launch of 1.0 the next update coming soon. Amazing game!
Just a warning: The current version has performance issues, it stutters like crazy even on beefy setups. It seems they didn’t get the level streaming implementation of UE5 right on the first try. This will probably get fixed for 1.0, but currently it’s painful playing in some parts of the map.
Celeste $1.99 (90% off, new all-time low)
Hard but fair precision platformer by an expert of platformer design. Excellent controls, deep platforming mechanics, and a cathartic story about internal and external struggles.
Also 🏳️⚧️
So true
Is the character trans? I have flinished the whole game and I can’t recall that.
https://maddymakesgames.com/articles/is_maddy_trans/index.html
Is Madeline Canonically Trans?
Well, yeah, of course she is.
This feels painfully obvious to a lot of (mostly trans) people, and likewise it feels painfully obvious to me too, in retrospect. It has also become painfully obvious to me that I, myself, am trans. But these are things that I was not aware of during the development of Celeste, where I was writing Madeline and speaking from her perspective. Creating Celeste with my friends helped me reach the point where I could realize this truth about myself. During Celeste’s development, I did not know that Madeline or myself were trans. During the Farewell DLC’s development, I began to form a hunch. Post-development, I now know that we both are.
So she is essentially retroactively trams.
Not that I mind, but it is what it is.
Read further, while the author didn’t realize what she was doing it is a trans narrative through and through, and the free dlc ending did contain the flag because by then she did know.
When Madeline looks in the mirror and sees her other self; when she attempts to abandon her reflection, who then drags her down the mountain; when the two reconcile and merge to become stronger and more complete… that was all unknowingly written from a trans perspective.
Yes, Maddy is trans. This is both from word of god and a hint in the background of a piece of art in-game.
I’ve been wanting to play this for a while and that price made it an instant buy. Really glad I did. Some of the strawberries are hard and unfair tho, haha.
Valheim
$19.99$9.99 (50% off)You’re a viking that died and you find yourself in a purgatory called “Valheim” to prove you’re worthy of Valhalla. Another survival builder - with a somehow charming combination of really bad graphics paired with really good lighting. The combat is kinda clunky, but the other elements of this game make up for it. Well worth $10!! Don’t forget to turn your music on before summoning a boss.
I have a couple hundred hours on Valheim from the past couple years, and I love it. I haven’t played since Ashlands came out, but I’m excited to jump into it at some point.
You’re a viking that died
Pretty sure they all did that
Yeah but these vikings extra died.
Disco Elysium is 90% off.
$54.49$4.54 (that’s in Canadian, not sure about the US price exactly.)I honestly couldn’t even tell you what it’s about, but it’s one of my favourite games ever. You can die from reading a book that’s too sad and if you do it right, you can smell communism.
Disco Elysium is always free, the devs got fucked and won’t get a cent from sales, everyone should pirate the game.
Incredible game that can be a little jarring for people who are probably expecting something like Baldur’s Gate 1&2, Fallout 1&2, or some other kind of isometric killfest RPG. It essentially turns the dialogue into 90% of the game, but the dialogue is so damn good that it doesn’t matter.
It also takes getting used to damage, as sometimes you can “die” in seemingly random ways. I was on a rooftop, I think trying to reach for a scarf or something, and failed my roll. That caused me to apparently get so depressed that I lost the game. I can’t remember which stat/trait it was but I think there’s a morale or mental trait you have to watch out for too.
Pirate this game if you wanna give it a try, don’t ever buy it. This is what the developers have advocated for and it actually fits right in with parts of the game itself.
DE is fantastically well written, equal parts emotional and hilarious depending how you play and one of my all time favorite games. Big recommend
Tunic $14.99 (50% off, new all-time low)
A little guy in a green tunic picks up a sword and goes on an adventure, but the game is in an unknown language and you only have a few pages of the manual. It’s like a metroidvania but your progress is based on knowledge.
Such a great game
Inscryption $7.99 (60% off, new all-time low)
You find an old, abandoned video game and load it up. It’s an atmospheric, spooky card game, hiding layers of secrets for you to discover. The less you know before starting the game, the better your experience will be.
Indeed, if you like creepy games and card games just buy it without looking closer - it is an incredible experience that shouldn’t be spoiled.
I’ve heard many glowing reviews with this same sentiment. In order to avoid most spoilers, may I ask you here - if I didn’t enjoy Undertale, would I still like this? I didn’t enjoy the metagaming that undertale did, making fun of the player for reloading a save. It felt dishonest. Does Inscryption also do this?
I’ll back up June. I was “that’s pretty nice” on Undertale but wasn’t nearly as positive on it as its fandom was. I loved Inscryption. It’s not meta like Undertale, but it does have occasional fourth wall breaks, which is part of its game-within-a-game fiction.
I don’t think this is anything like undertale, and I didn’t like it either. It doesn’t make fun of you for reloading iirc
Thank you!
Thanks for that. Added to my wishlist.
+1
I’m trying this game on PSN, but often the dealer is just throwing high numbers at me and I can’t see any economic way I can match them with my own summons. Two bears in a row; what do?
It’s my common issue with Roguelikes. You’re replaying the first level a lot and things don’t really develop much very quickly. I kinda just gave up.
This War of Mine: Complete Edition
£26.93£3.91 (85% off)In my opinion one of the greatest games but also one of the saddest. If you already own the game then I highly recommend all the DLC as they all bring some interesting scenarios to the game.
Played it pirated years ago. Not really looking to play again tbh because it’s so sad, but I’ll buy it discounted for supporting, I back then liked the very original angle of playing with trapped victims instead of army.
Your link is to example.com
Fixed. Thanks.
Ultimate Chicken Horse $5.24 (65% off, matching the all-time low)
Design platformer levels with your friends, then race them to the end, locally or online. Points are only awarded if someone died, so make the level extra dangerous!
I’ve played somewhere around 1500 hours across multiple systems. There’s really nothing else quite like it.
My kids played this till their eyes bled. Great local screen party game.
Really great party game, kids love it. There’s a constant push-pull to make the level just hard enough. It kind of breaks down though if somebody has made it effectively unwinnable for everybody and you can’t find a way to unblock it. Otherwise though, it’s a fantastic game.
Grounded
$39.99$19.99 (50% off)This is basically “Honey I Shrunk The Kids” as a survival builder. Set in the 80s, you and up to three others are teens that miniaturized by… well you gotta figure out the how and why, and how to return to normal size by navigating the back yard of a scientist with some knowledge on the tech. TBH, I didn’t really expect much from this game, but found myself having a ridiculous amount of fun with it. It is REALLY well made - the attention to detail is insane, from the yard design to build pieces. I wish I had this game when I was a kid, but still enjoyed the hell out of it in my 30s.
Just picked up Bloons 6, (~$1, 90% off) for those who like tower defense games. Lots of unlockable content and metaprogression, if that’s your jam.
It is genuinely ridiculous how much content there is in this game for the price. Like, a lot of it looks like an excuse to play the same levels a dozen times with minor variations, but then there are tons of levels, lots of events, ongoing updates with new content of all types, so many different towers and upgrades to play with, community maps to add even more variety… It looks like I’ve played over 200 games and I have so much of the game that I haven’t even touched yet.
it is ridiculous how much content that game offers for the low price tag. one of my most played right now. the only td I have found that well maintained and very replayable
The greatest tower defense game ever made, really. It’s seriously impressive how it appeals to very casual users and the most extreme fans that want a challenge. I also really respect that, while the game has some mictrotransactions, you can’t use any of them on the hardest difficulty.
Trombone Champ 60% off
Trombone Champ is the world’s first trombone-based rhythm music game. Unlike most music games, you can freely play any note at any time. You’re not just following along with the music, you’re actually playing the music!
Another for the wishlist. Thanks for posting that.
This one plays great on the steam deck. I played the happy birthday song for my kids and it was awful in the most amazing of ways.
Shattered Pixel Dungeon,
9.99 USD6.69 USDIt’s a turn-based traditional roguelike + dungeon crawler, i.e. there are no in-game permanent upgrades to make the characters stronger, and only you the player get “stronger” as you become more knowledgeable. If you are into that kind of game, this is absolutely one of the best I’ve played!
The developer Evan has been continuously updating the game for the past decade, with a new, sixth playable hero scheduled to release later this year. The game is also free and open source, so you can even play the full game for free. I bought the Steam version (and has sunk 100+ hrs into it) because it’s so rare for me nowadays to find a game I don’t get tired of after a handful of hours. (Not saying short games are necessarily bad though, some of my faves are very short too.)
Also, check out the official [email protected]!
I play this on my android phone. It’s free, ad-free, and you can pay to support.
The updates have been awesome. It’s extremely difficult, and it’s not unusual to die a buncha times before your first success.
Well now there is a dedicated post. Yours. 😄
