We've combed the first big Steam sale of the year for the best deals on new games and older favorites.
The first big Steam sale of the year is here. The Steam Spring Sale features the biggest discounts we've seen so far on some of our favorite 2023 games, and even a few smaller discounts on brand new games from this year—January mega-hit Palworld among them.
Meanwhile, some of our older favorites are discounted to within an inch of being free: hit the bottom sections of this list for some of the best games you can get for under $25, $10, and $5.
The Steam Spring Sale runs through March 21. While you're deal hunting, check out Epic's Spring Sale, too—Alan Wake 2 is down to $40, and Deus Ex: Mankind Divided is a very generous 100% off.
For even more recommendations, we recently compiled a list of great games that always get Steam sale discounts, and you can check out guides to the best RPGs, best FPS games, best strategy games, and best survival games for even more inspiration.
The discounts aren't huge, but some of this year's popular games are already on sale (but not Helldivers 2, sorry).
Here's a selection of sales from last year's cream of the crop, including some of our 2023 GOTY Award winners. If you've been waiting for them to hit just the right discount, this sale might be the time, because a number of them are cheaper than they were in the Steam Winter Sale a few months ago.
Star Wars Jedi: Survivor | $31.49/£26.99 (55% off)
Respawn did it again with some good Star Warsin' at a time when there's not a lot of good Star Warsin' outside of Andor. Jedi: Survivor is "easily the best modern Star Wars game," as Morgan put it. This discount is a 5% improvement on the Winter Sale's 50%.
System Shock | $19.99/£17.49 (50% off) | ???? Best Remake 2023
Looking Glass's original System Shock was often overlooked in favor of its famous successor, and no matter how much you love the classics, it can be hard to go back to its chunky, pre-mouselook interface and grueling, sink-or-swim exploration. Enter Nightdive's excellent remake. This is a significantly better discount than we saw in last year's Winter Sale.
Pizza Tower | $13.39/£10.04 (23% off)
One of our favorite games of last year, seriously. It's a "non-stop, absurd, and wonderful slice of speedrunning action," we said in our 90% review. This is another slight improvement on the Winter Sale discount.
God of War | $24.99/£19.99 (50% off)
In 2022, one of the best PlayStation games became one of the best PC games, and now it's the cheapest it's ever been on Steam.
Hades | $12.49/£10.49 (50% off) | ???? Best Action Game 2020
If you never got around to Supergiant's 2020 insta-classic roguelike, this is the best price we've seen for it. Come for the punchy combat, stay for the messy Greek god drama.
The Case of the Golden Idol | $11.69/£11.04 (35% off) | ???? Best Story 2022
The lowest price we've seen on a brilliant detective game from a couple years ago. Its "deep and fascinating" story earned it one of our GOTY awards in 2022.
Marvel's Midnight Suns |$14.99/£12.49 (75% off)
???? 2022 GOTY Runner-Up
XCOM-maker Firaxis created our favorite recent superhero game, a mix of XCOM's gridded turn-based tactics, deckbuilding, and a friendship sim. It was definitely underloved, and is a steal at this price.
Teardown | $22.49/£19.49 (25% off) |???? Best Sandbox 2022
A physics-based, voxel-powered playground melded with a genius puzzle game: "If I blow up this entire mansion, will I have space to drive this sportscar into the ocean?"
Risk of Rain 2 | $12.49/£9.99 (50% off)
An excellent roguelike about fighting hordes of monsters while collecting and combining items to generate increasingly absurd effects. Grab the bundle with the excellent expansion; it's still under $20.
Hunt: Showdown | $13.99/£12.59 (65% off)
This is the same discount as the last sale, the cheapest Hunt usually gets ($11.39 is the record). It's still one of the most interesting FPSes in gaming right now. Other extraction shooters (and other shooters in general) should take note.
Hollow Knight | $7.49/£6.39 (50% off)
The sequel, Hollow Knight: Silksong, will come out eventually. In the meantime, seven-and-a-half bucks is a low price to pay to find out why fans of this 2017 metroidvania are so hyped for the follow-up.
Sable | $8.74/£7.34 (65% off) | ???? Best Narrative 2021
One of the coolest-looking games of the 2020s so far at its lowest price yet. Sable won our Best Narrative award in 2021 for its coming-of-age story about a rite of passage in an otherworldly desert.
Pentiment | $9.99/£7.49 (50% off)
Obsidian went in a surprising direction for this 2022 gem. Instead of the usual sci-fi or fantasy RPG, it's a narrative-focused game set in the 16th century, and it's great. This is its lowest price yet.
Card Shark | $9.99/£8.37 (50% off) | ???? Best Design 2022
Balatro is all the rage right now, but here's another great adaptation of a casino card game: Card Shark isn't about playing cards so much as it is about cheating at cards.
Strange Horticulture | $7.99/£6.74 (50% off)
???? Best Puzzle Game 2022
Inheriting a plant shop where nothing is labeled sounds stressful, but it's actually a wonderful combination of cozy and spooky thanks to fascinatingly odd customers, and a cat you can pet.
The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt | $9.99 / £6.24 (75% off) | ???? Best Singleplayer 2015
The big ray tracing update to The Witcher 3 had a bit of a rocky rollout last year, but things got better, and this is almost as big as the discount gets on it. (The max we've seen is 80% off.)
Time on Frog Island | $4.99/£3.87 (75% off)
If you have time to spend some time on Time on Frog Island, we think it'll be worth that time: we heartily recommended the charming trading game in our 83% review.
Vampire Survivors | $3.99/£3.19 (20% off)
???? Best Roguelike 2022
In 2022, we called Vampire Survivors "one of the best deals you can get on PC" at its full price... $4.99. Now it's an even bester deal. If you want to splurge, there's a bundle that contains all of the DLC released so far for $9.23.
Loop Hero | $4.94/£4.22 (67% off) | ???? Best Design 2021
The Vampire Survivors of 2021, in the sense that it's an inexpensive game that it's easy to devote way more time to than you ever thought you would.
Perhaps in anticipation of its upcoming DLC, Elden Ring is sadly not discounted in this sale. The rest of our last 10 Game of the Year winners are, though. Read about why these games are so special in our Game of the Year awards archive.
