The Steam summer sale is an annual opportunity to add vast numbers to the teetering pile of games you’ll get around to playing someday. With bonkers 90-percent-off deals, you can grab recent big-name games for under $5, all of which you’ll definitely remember to load up someday. But it’s not just the AAA blockbusters that are cheap right now; the sale also includes fantastic unknown indie games at far less risky prices.
Buying an unknown game, or one that’s barely had any reviews, is fraught. Of course, for such games, that’s a self-perpetuating problem—no giant buzz means no early sales, and no early sales fails to encourage others to take a chance. Fortunately, there are wonderful sites out there that root through the squillions of games to help you find the good stuff, like IndieGames and Alpha Beta Gamer, and YouTube channels like SplatterCatGaming. (And, if I may, my own Buried Treasure.) So there’s no better time than now to look through their recommendations, and then see if those games are cheaper in the Steam sale.
But, to make life even easier for you, I’ve gone back through some of my favorite hidden indie treasures of recent times—games that are completely brilliant but mostly unknown—to see which are discounted right now. Read on for a few suggestions of games you might otherwise entirely miss, now at even lower prices.