The best Steam Summer Sale deals: VG247’s list of the best games on sale

We trawl the sale so that you don’t have to.

The Steam Summer Sale of 2017 is now on, and wallets everywhere are being emptied by good old Gabe and his video game publisher cohorts on Steam – one imagines they’re all cackling, and doing that Doctor Evil thing with their pinkies. Almost certainly.

The 2017 summer sale continues the trend established in earlier steam sales of late, doing away with the flash deals and daily deals. In one sense this is good – there are no more arbitrary smaller ticking clocks, and there’s no more waiting to see if that game you really want will get a daily deal at the eleventh hour towards the end of sales. It also works for Valve – dropping those formats of sale helped to bump its sales by 50%.

There is a negative side to all this, however – there are an absolute ton of games out there on sale. Hundreds! It’s practically too many to really properly take in, and so that’s where we come in. Over on our other Steam Summer Sale page we’ve got a long list of the games that Valve has chosen to highlight over the course of the sale. Even as Valve removes things from the spotlight, we’ll keep that record up.

On this page, meanwhile, we’re going to piece together our own staff picks for games you should look up during the summer sale – from all time classics to games with massive discounts, only the best games on sale will be listed here.

We’ll be updating this page throughout the sale, so pop back every now and then to see what we’ve added. You can suggest stuff in the comments too, if you want. Let’s get to it. Prepare your wallets…

Steam Summer Sale 2017: our RPG picks

• Middle Earth: Shadow of Mordor GOTY Edition – $3.99 / £3.19 – 80% off

  This is a great action RPG with Batman Arkham-inspired counter-heavy combat and was a worthy Game of the Year contender when it released. Based on what we played at E3 its upcoming sequel Shadow of War is looking pretty tasty too. This is an ideal price to catch up.

• The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt – $24.99 / £14.99 – 50% off

  There’s a reason why our epic Witcher 3 Guide is still one of the most popular sections of the site – this game is brilliant and utterly enormous. It’s one of the best RPGs ever. The Game of the Year edition is also on sale if you want some hot DLC to go with it.

• Nier: Automata – $41.99 / £27.99 – 30% off

  Gleefully off-the-wall nuts, Nier Automata seems like a relatively run of the mill (and therefore fun) Platinum Games action game with a dash of Square Enix JRPG for good measure – but then it goes mad, subverting many video game tropes with reckless abandon. The end result is bloody amazing.

• Transistor – $2.99 / £2.24 – 80% off

  Transistor is without a doubt one of the best indie RPGs in recent years with stand-out art and music – and at this price, an absolute steal.

• Dark Souls 3 – $23.99 / £15.99 – 50% off

  The final entry in From Software’s super hard Souls series is a brilliant culmination – and if it proves too challenging, we have helpful guides to assist. The Deluxe Edition is also on sale, as is the first DLC pack.

• Pillars of Eternity – $17.99 / £15.19 – 60% off

  It’s still difficult to say out loud, but Pillars of Eternity is one of the best RPGs of its kind since Baldur’s Gate. A huge adventure that was worth the cost of entry at full price – leave alone this discount.

• Stardew Valley – $8.99 / £6.59 – 40% off

  One of the top indie darlings of last year, Stardew Valley is a delightful RPG and simulation mash-up that channels the likes of Animal Crossing and Harvest Moon while throwing in more character progression and even dungeon crawling. It remains an absolute must-play.

• Final Fantasy VII – $5.99 / £4.99 – 50% off

  One of the most culturally and critically significant Japanese RPGs of all time – a genre-changer that should be on everyone’s ‘play before you die’ list. Plus, a (probably inferior) remake is on the way. May as well experience the original first, right?

• Final Fantasy IX – $10.49 / £7.99 – 50% off

  The best one. Don’t argue.

Steam Summer Sale 2017: our action / shooter picks

• DOOM – $14.99 / £9.99 – 50% off

  I was one of those people who thought a DOOM reboot could only go badly, but Bethesda and ID nailed it. This is another game that’s a joy on a high-end PC with settings cranked up, but it runs surprisingly well and is satisfyingly brutal on even modest rigs.

• Grand Theft Auto 5 – $29.99 / £19.99 – 50% off

  Being one of the best-selling games of all time means Rockstar don’t need to discount GTA 5 often. GTA 5 is already brilliant, and on a high-end PC on max settings it is eye-searingly good. Various bundles with cash cards for GTA Online are also discounted for the Summer Sale.

• Superhot – $14.99 / £10.79 – 40% off

  If you want a different take on shooting, get Superhot. The gimmick is simple: time only moves when you do. It’s part-puzzle, part-shooter, all amazing. In a weird way, this is the best Martix Bullet Time game ever made. The separate Superhot VR is on sale too.

• Mafia 3 – $14.79 / £12.94 – 63% off

  Mafia 3 is a rather flawed game, but this discounted price is about right for it if you fancy a beautifully presented, Scorsese-inspired, roller-coaster gangster story to play through. Focus on the story and ignore the side stuff.

• Arma 3 – $13.59 / £10.93 – 66% off

  While it isn’t for the faint of heart thanks to how brutally dedicated it is to realism, Arma wears that seriousness as a badge of honor – and with the right group of allies that can make this one of the best online shooters.

• ddd – $14.69 / £11.26 – 51% off

  Generally we’re loath to put an early access game on this list, but ARK is pretty damn good and there’s a lot to it

Steam Summer Sale 2017: our strategy and simulation picks

• XCOM 2 – $19.79 / £11.54 – 67% off

  Put simply, XCOM 2 is one of the best turn-based strategy games ever made, and even has a hint of RPG-like progression to get you even more invested. It’s one of the best games of last year, and is basically a must-play. An expansion was announced at E3.

• Civilization 6 – $35.99 / £29.99 – 40% off

  This one is still on the expensive side, but with good reason – Civilization is the king of the strategy genre. It’s well worth your time – and if you’d prefer an older Civ, the older games in the series are also on sale. Civ 4 (with expansions) strikes a good balance of a more modern presentation with classic gameplay..

• Total War: Warhammer – $20.39 / £13.59 – 66% off

  While they arguably completely cocked this up by not calling it Total Warhammer, this is a great strategy title with a sequel on the way. Warhammer is a perfect fit for Creative Assembly’s mad, large-scale brand of combat.

• Cities Skylines – $7.49 / £5.99 – 75% off

  Ducking out of war strategy for a second, Paradox’s Sim City-alike has actually surpassed all but the most classic rivals in the city-building strategy and simulation genre. It’s well worth a look. There’s a lot of DLC and a deluxe edition on sale, plus a thriving mod community.

• Prison Architect – $7.49 / £4.99 – 75% off

  Sometimes even dark things can be fun in game form – even something as messed up and troubling as the Prison Industrial Complex. Prison Architect is inspired by the likes of Theme Hospital, Theme Park and Sim City, but it’s all about a prison – and it’s horrifyingly addictive.

• Football Manger 2017 – $16.99 / £11.89 – 66% off

  Here’s the great secret about Football Manager – you really don’t have to like football to enjoy it. Under the hood this is a painfully in-depth strategy game, all about crunching numbers, weighing up risk and deciding a strategy. It’s worth a try even for football haters who happen to like a bit of strategy.

Steam Summer Sale 2017: our other top picks

• Hitman – $23.73 / £15.89 – 66% off

  Hitman’s 2016 outing is a fantastic mix of a stealth game, an action game and a rube goldberg machine. It was episodic, but the complete first ‘season’ of the absolutely brilliant game can now be had for a bargain price. After the split with Square Enix all this cash goes to now-indie developer IO Interactive, too.

• Resident Evil 7: biohazard – $35.99 / £23.99 – 40% off

  This isn’t a huge discount, but Resident Evil 7 isn’t yet six months old. It’s also shaping up to be one of our favourite games of the year, a bold reboot and rethink on what Capcom’s classic horror series should be. If you’re a scaredy cat we have a full and helpful Resident Evil 7 guide to hold your hand.

• The Typing of the Dead: Overkill – $3.99 / £2.99 – 80% off

  A massive discount off a brilliant game – a recreation of a 90s/00s classic that is both a typing learning tool and a zombie blaster. The grindhouse cinema inspired story is also… well, interesting to say the least.

• The Silent Age – $0.99 / £0.69 – 80% off

  Recall one of the most classic eras of PC gaming in this hugely successful and ridiculously cheap point-and-click adventure.

• Deadly Premonition – $2.49 / £1.99 – 90% off

  Deadly Premonition is like — what if Hideo Kojima was just as mad and ambitious but had basically no budget? Swery65 is the result, Deadly Premonition the mad, Twin Peaks inspired horror/action/exploration/adventure game spawned from that mind.

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