Steam Summer Sale 2018: all the best games and deals

Ready your wallets, gamers: some big ol' discounts are coming to Steam this week.

The game distribution platform has announced it's kicking off its Steam Summer Sale until July 5, with an abundance of price slashes coming to its expansive library of titles.

While Steam always has an ongoing roster of weeklong and weekly deals, they aren't quite as exciting as the big extravaganzas we see in their seasonal sales.

In this guide we'll keep you up to date with the best deals and discounts available on the platform, and how to get the best out of the sales.

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Steam deals of the moment

Left 4 Dead 2

Valve's cooperative zombie shooter Left 4 Dead 2 pits four survivors against the undead horde, and has an absolute blast doing it. With procedurally-altered campaigns, too, the game is smart enough to vary the challenge depending on how (and how well) you play.

And at 90% off RRP, it's basically free...

Get Left 4 Dead 2 for 90% RRP at the Steam Store

Undertale

This fun, kooky indie RPG won over players with its playful dialogue, in-fight minigames, and option to play through its six-hour dungeon-crawler campaign without harming a single soul. At 50% off RRP, this universally-acclaimed game is looking better value than ever.

Get Undertale for 50% off RRP at the Steam Store

Bioshock franchise

There are few game worlds as well-realised as the underwater city of Rapture. The original Bioshock was a runaway success, praised for its thrilling combat, masterful storytelling, and one of the best narrative twists of any FPS game to date.

You can now dip into Bioshock, Bioshock 2, and the skyward Bioshock Infinite for a sizeable 67% off RRP.

Get Bioshock games for 67% off RRP at the Steam Store

Batman franchise

Steam is offering a fleet of 75% discounts across Rocksteady's acclaimed action-adventure games (Arkham Asylum, Arkham City, Arkham Origins, Arkham Knight... you get the idea) and even Lego Batman: The Videogame, for those wanting a lighter take on the caped crusader.

Get Batman or Lego Batman games for 75% off RRP at the Steam Store

Super Meat Boy

This tough-as-nails retro platformer is as rewarding to play as it is punishing – and you can now play through its 300+ levels for a whopping 90% off RRP. With a big sequel planned for release this year, too, you might want to get some practise in while you can.

Get Super Meat Boy for 90% off RRP at the Steam Store

The Stanley Parable

The Stanley parable is a masterclass in interactive storytelling, pitting you against the will of a droll narrator as they attempt to guide you through your deserted office building. Will you follow orders, or take the story in a whole new direction?

Witty, thought-provoking, full of branching paths, and available for 75% off RRP.

Get The Stanley Parable for 75% off RRP at the Steam Store

LIMBO

Playdead's bleak, monochrome platformer follows a young boy in a forest searching for his lost sister, and won high praise for its gripping atmosphere and minimalist art style. You can zip through it in only a few hours, but the hefty 75% discount means you're definitely getting bang for your buck.

If it leaves you wanting more, the studio's moody follow-up INSIDE is also on sale for 55% off RRP.

Tomb Raider franchise

The iconic explorer has seen a huge transformation since her debut outing in '96, moving from polygonal poster-girl to complex, conflicted heroine. And with 70-90% discounts across the entire platforming series, what better time to join her on that journey?

Get Tomb Raider games for 70-90% off RRP at the Steam Store

Portal / Portal 2

Few games enjoy such cult status as the 3D puzzle platformer Portal or its expansive sequel, Portal 2. With a whopping 90% price cut, we envisage plenty of players rushing back to play through its physics-bending puzzles and impeccably droll humour.

Get the Portal bundle for 90% off RRP at the Steam Store

Final Fantasy XV

This is the JRPG writ large. The 15th mainline instalment in the Final Fantasy series offers a rich open-world with gorgeous animation and plenty of chemistry between its lead characters. The PC version was only released in early 2018 and offers a wealth of bonus content with a sharp 50% price cut, so now may be the best time to jump in.

Get Final Fantasy XV for 50% off RRP at the Steam Store

Other deals you may have missed:

How to get the best deals in the Steam Sales

Whichever way you approach the Steam Summer Sale (or any other Steam deal-a-thon for that matter), you're guaranteed to pick up something great at a great price.

But there are a few techniques and tricks that are worth using if you want to get the most out of the sale.

Use your Steam Wishlist: Fill it up with all the games you're interested in picking up, and you'll be alerted the moment they go on sale, and by how much.
Bundles are great: Publishers often pull their titles together in sale mega-packs, ramping up the savings to even greater heights. If there's a suite of titles from a publisher like Square Enix or Activision that you've never played before, this is the best – and cheapest – way to bag them all at once. As you'd imagine, the value diminishes if you've already got a few bundled titles in your library.
Highlighted deals are where the real savings are: The majority of the Steam store back-catalogue will get some sort of price cut, but it's the 'Highlighted' deals (the ones promoted on the Steam front splash page) that tend to be more heavily discounted. These are the ones where you may fall into impulse-buy territory. Which leads us on to our next tip...
Only buy what you'll actually play right away: Once those 75% off signs start floating around, you're going to want to break open the piggy-bank. But the Steam sales of yesteryear have proved that our desire for overflowing game libraries leaves us with more titles than we could ever humanly play. Save some cash, and only grab the ones you're really going to play – keep in mind that if you wait a while, the games will almost certainly get cheaper as they get older.
Use this browser extension: Want to make sure you're getting a good deal? Use the Enhanced Steam browser extension. This gives you a historical look at the price of all Steam games, letting you see just how many pennies have been saved.

The best Steam Sale deals of the year so far

Gone but not forgotten, here's our collection of all the best deals we've seen up until this point. Use them as a point of reference for what you should be expecting – or you know, lament the ones that got away.

Shadow of Mordor: Perhaps the definitive Lord of the Rings video game, Middle-earth: Shadow of Mordor was lauded on release for its stellar combat, open-world action, and an intelligent Nemesis system that. If 50 Game of the Year awards weren't enough to convince you, a hefty 60% discount certainly should have been.

Half-life: Yes, it's old. But is it still one of the best game franchises in history? Yes. Yes it is. And frankly, at 93% off it didn't matter if it was garbage. Which it isn't. It's great. And 93% off – that was pretty much free.

The Witcher 3: Inarguably the game of 2015, The Witcher 3 is also now widely considered the best RPG of all time. A sprawling dark fantasy epic, it's a beautiful game, and one that's a great showpiece for your souped-up gaming PC too.

And, with the Game of the Year Edition being heavily discounted in the Steam Summer Sale 2017, it was a fantastic way to jump into this monumental game, and get all of its DLC at a discount too.

The Valve complete pack: If, by some small miracle, you were a PC gamer that was yet to try any of Valve's homegrown titles, this was your chance. The Valve Complete Pack was a staggering 91% off its usual asking price, including all the Half-Life games and episodes, every Portal game, every Left 4 Dead game, a bunch of DLC and much, much more.

What games are going to be in the Steam Sales?

First off, you shouldn't expect brand-new games to get the really steep discounts that have become synonymous with the Steam sales. You may see a 5%, or even 10% discount on games that have been recent big hits, but if they're still new enough to be spinning money without needing a price cut, don't expect that to change now that the sale is here.

But, with the exception of the newer titles, pretty much the entire store receives a 25% discount, if not higher, with a select few seeing a massive 90% off the list price. While the store now highlights what Valve considers the best deals, it's worth noting that flash and community sales are no longer in the mix, so feel free to pick a title on sale when you like – its discounted price will stand for the duration of the sale.

Of course, Other Gaming Stores Do Exist™, and it's worth checking their wares too, to see if you can't bag an even bigger bargain elsewhere. GOG.com is a great place to start, and if you're platform-agnostic and looking for multi-platform titles, keep an eye on the PlayStation Plus and Xbox Live Deals with Gold offers, too.