The Steam Winter Sale ends later this week, so you have just a few more days to pick up any games you want. If there’s only a little bit of money left in your Steam Wallet, then you’ll want to look at the games on sale at deep discounts right now. Thankfully, tons of fantastic games are available for under $5 during this Steam Winter Sale, and I’m not just talking about Okami or Star Wars: Squadrons. If you haven’t played any of the following six titles before, I highly recommend picking them up for cheap before the Steam Winter Sale ends on January 2, 2025.
Titanfall 2’s reputation proceeds the game itself at this point. Respawn Entertainment’s first-person sci-fi shooter underperformed when it launched in 2016, but has gone on to become one of the most beloved FPS games of all time. Its silky smooth game feel puts its gunplay toe-to-toe with the likes of Call of Duty and Battlefield, although being able to use a grappling hook to traverse and summon a mech to rain terror on enemies still gives its multiplayer matches a unique feel. On top of that, this game features one of the best single-player shooter campaigns ever made, as it’s bursting at the seams with innovative ideas and shocking gameplay twists in each and every level. Titanfall 2 normally costs $30, but you can pick up up during the Steam Winter Sale for just $3.
While South Park: Snow Day is a much newer game, your money is better spent on the decade-old South Park: The Stick of Truth during this Steam Winter Sale. It’s a turn-based fantasy RPG by Obsidian Entertainment, one of the Western masters of the genre. Given that the creators of the hilarious Comedy Central animated series worked on this game, it’s no surprise that it’s one of the funniest games I’ve ever played. It also nails the 2D papercraft-like look of South Park more than almost any other game based on the show, and still looks great over a decade after its release. If you’re a South Park fan but somehow haven’t played The Stick of Truth yet, it’s time to change that. Like Titanfall 2, South Park: The Stick of Truth typically retails at $30, but during the Steam Winter Sale, you can pick it up for just $3.
Fallout was one of the best TV shows released this year. If you liked the show, I highly recommend checking out the games it’s based on out. Of all of them, Fallout: New Vegas (also from Obsidian Entertainment) is considered the best. While you’ll likely need to do some tinkering with mods to get the game running more smoothly on your PC, Fallout: New Vegas stands out as the best game in the series because of how much it emphasizes player choice through both narrative and gameplay, And that’s not to mention its biting satirical writing. It appears that parts of the second season of Fallout will take place in New Vegas as well, so you’ll gain a deeper understanding of what’s going on in the show next season if you play this game. That’s why it makes sense to pick Fallout: New Vegas up for $5 during the Steam Winter Sale rather than for the $10 price tag it’s usually available at.
Helldivers 2 was one of the breakout games of 2024, but far fewer people have played its predecessor. It’s an isometric shooter rather than a third-person shooter, but it surprisingly offers a lot of the same elements that make its sequel a hit. You’ll be calling down stratagems to help you win a fight, often feel outnumbered and outmatched by alien enemies, and participate in a metagame with other players to ward off the alien threat to Super Earth. I always find it fascinating to revisit the games that served as building blocks for the biggest hits in the video game industry, and the original Helldivers is a prime example of that. As Helldivers: Dive Harder Edition is available for just $4 during the Steam Winter Sale rather than $20, I think avid fans of Helldivers 2 should play its predecessor out of curiosity.
While AAA game discounts tend to get the most attention during Steam sales, so many fantastic indie games drop their prices during events like the Steam Winter Sale. This time around, I want to specifically recommend Dicey Dungeons, a game you probably haven’t heard of, but will have a fantastic time with. While deckbuilding roguelikes are a played-out genre at this point, Dicey Dungeons runs its own race by centering every action the players can take around dice. Players roll the dice at the start of each turn and can then spend those amounts on certain abilities. Sometimes, the number rolled plays into multiplayer for an offensive attack; at other times, it contributes to a countdown for a more powerful ability. With tons of variance in possible character builds and the procedurally generated variance of each run, Dicey Dungeons is an easy game to sink countless hours into. Dicey Dungeons typically costs $15, but is available for only $3 during the Steam Winter Sale.
Doom: The Dark Ages will be released sometime in 2025, capping off id Software’s rebooted Doom trilogy with a game that adds a Quake-inspired medieval flair to everything. As such, now’s a perfect time to revisit the 2016 reboot that revitalized the classic hardcore FPS for modern platforms. The original Doom is one of the most iconic games of all time, but 2016’s Doom feels just as important to the genre because of how subversive it felt when it emphasized gorey, visceral action and rhythmic gameplay that sees players swap between shooting enemies and chainsawing them for health and ammo. It’s typically priced at $20 nowadays, but Doom is just $4 during the Steam Winter Sale. With this and Titanfall 2 on sale, you can get the best shooters of 2016 for under $10 between now and January 2.
The Call of Duty franchise has held a special place in my heart ever since I played my first Black Ops game back in 2010. That game's campaign was something else, with twists and turns that culminated in a mind-blowing finale. We can all admit that compared to those older campaigns, the recent CODs have been lackluster at best, and a complete and utter disappointment at worst. The reboot of Modern Warfare did give me some hope, as the first two installments were actually quite good, but the third game left such a bad taste in my mouth that I wasn’t exactly expecting much from Modern Warfare 4.
After recently finishing the campaign, I can say that this installment is nothing like the recent releases and instead feels closer to the franchise’s roots. For the first time in a long while, the campaign comes across as well-crafted rather than rushed to hit a release date. It arrives three years after MW3, and you can see exactly where all that time went. It seems the studio finally made listening to player feedback a priority.
Epic Games has just announced the 2026 Epic AI MegaJam, which is looking to see how much game development can be squeezed into a very short window. This is running from November 12 through November 15.
Participants can work alone or in teams of up to five people, build in Unreal Engine or Unreal Editor for Fortnite, and bring along “as many AI agents as you want.” Epic explicitly encourages coding agents, AI-generated assets, audio tools, writing tools, and other AI systems. The official event page literally says "Vibe your way to $50k.”
It’s turning into a pretty good time to be a Monster Hunter fan who plays on a phone. Capcom has confirmed that Monster Hunter Outlanders will launch on Android and iOS on October 29, giving the series a new mobile-first game just as Monster Hunter Rise is also preparing to make the jump to smartphones through Netflix.
Outlanders is being developed by Tencent subsidiary TiMi Studio Group under license and supervision from Capcom. Unlike Rise, which appears to be the full console and PC game adapted for mobile, Outlanders is a free-to-play survival hunting game made specifically for phones.