With every passing 12 months, the PC gaming scene grows more and more fragmented. More video games are launched, and on common they’re higher, too. There’s simply not sufficient time to cowl all of them, and 2025 was packed with gems you in all probability have not heard of. For these prepared to go just a bit off the overwhelmed path, the present Steam Winter Sale appears like a endless bounty of undersold treasures. So this is a rigorously curated number of 15 of my favorites to contemplate over the last couple days of gross sales season.
Here are the foundations I’m narrowing issues down with:
- Released (or in any other case re-released) in 2025: A contemporary crop of latest underdogs
- Little to no protection on PC Gamer earlier than: Played & really useful by me
- Undersold, not underrated: Only gems hovering round 95% constructive consumer rating
- Offbeat, inside cause: Fewer sicko picks this season, loads of refreshing flavors
- 30% low cost minimal: Wouldn’t be a correct gross sales roundup with out financial savings
- One sport per style, with as broad a spread as attainable: Something for everybody
Since the year was so densely packed, I’m annoying the editors by slipping in a thematically related (but less beholden to the rules) alternative to each pick, for 30 games total. As ever, shout out your favourites, or comment if I helped you find something that made your heart sing. Let’s go!
Price: $21 / £17.50 (30% off) | Developer: Siris Pendrake
A shocking testomony to what a (largely) solo developer can do with a contemporary engine and a few inventory asset packs. Still in early entry, however already a really polished, prolonged and non-linear STALKER-inspired shooter with a cool setting. Mankind is successfully extinct. Lizard-people (which you are one among) have inherited the ruins of our civilization, and historical fae magics leak in by the cracks of actuality, as if rogue super-science wasn’t sufficient.
Project Silverfish seems like a pared-down, greased-up model of STALKER. Faster, twitchier, impressively polished (on the expense of some element), capable of run nice on even lower-spec machines and requiring much less fiddling round between sorties. Expect to be thrown into messy multi-faction battles proper off the bat with a great deal of loot, getting you into deeper expeditions early.
Alternatively: ADACA (50% off) – The earlier sport from the identical developer, and successfully two video games in a single: A Half-Life 2/Halo-inspired story marketing campaign and a STALKER-lite sandbox. Both surprisingly slick (and formally completed as of 2024), however Silverfish’s open world & methods are on one other degree.
Price: $14 / £11.72 (30% off) | Developer: Figburn & Melon
Hands up if you’ve still got a special place in your heart for Flash-era gaming, specifically Newgrounds. Contract Rush DX is a game forged in those familiar fires. It’s a little bit Mega Man, a little bit Contra and more than a dash of Alien Hominid, all held together with globs of slick vectorized cartoon animation, unrealistic hyperviolence and goofy humor. They don’t often make them like this anymore.
Contract Rush DX doesn’t rest on its nostalgic laurels though. There’s a beefy, smart platformer here, with its main levels playable in any order and each with a distinct feel and mechanical twist. Recruit new characters to access extra areas or tackle bonus side-missions and work your way closer to the lore-laden reveals of the game’s well-hidden True Ending.
Alternatively: Seafrog (50% off) – Another platforming gem that fell between the cracks, now refreshed and underneath a brand new writer’s banner. A slick, high-technique mix of conventional platforming and Tony Hawk model skating, with massive rewards for chaining lengthy trick combos, giving each stage actual replay worth.
Price: $12 / £10.05 (40% off) | Developer: LimboLane
Not only a hidden gem, however one among my favourites of 2025. You’re a Godpoke, wrangler of deities, despatched to assist put the bickering gods of this weird cartoon world again on the straight-and-narrow to avert the apocalypse. A refreshing tackle the point-and-click journey, as moderately than hoard each merchandise you discover, you make up on your personal quiet nature by utilizing your suck ‘n’ blow megaphone to steal phrases from characters’ dialogue and deploying them elsewhere as potential options. Or simply to goof round.
As with LimboLane’s earlier Smile For Me, that is a complete world of Weird Little Guys, even the cosmically enormous gods. Everyone’s no less than a bit little bit of a freak, however they’re all weirdly lovable. Especially the chaotically useful ‘bizzyboys’ gang, the answer to and supply of half the sport’s issues, and ceaselessly featured in some deeply unusual FMV puppet-show segments.
Alternatively: Kulebra and the Souls of Limbo (40% off) – one other offbeat journey about hanging out with bizarre little guys of delusion and legend. This time you are a snake-spirit within the Latin-American afterlife, attempting to puzzle out find out how to break the everlasting day-long loop that the useless are trapped in. Heartfelt, bittersweet and ceaselessly humorous.
Price: $14 / £11.72 (30% off) | Developer: 13AM Games, Mighty Yell
If you have been to make a brand new Missile Command sport, what sort of sport would it not be? Probably not ‘Teen drama escape-room with tactical hex-based technique’. This weird hybrid hasn’t bought nicely in any respect, however it’s an incredibly good and interesting time. Four teenagers got down to discover an deserted chilly conflict bunker, solely to seek out themselves wrapped up in an escalating disaster necessitating loads of point-and-click model puzzling and a few nearly Into The Breach-esque defensive turn-based battling.
The fight includes planning strikes two or three steps forward, saving sources by catching a number of incoming missiles in chaining explosions, similar to the outdated arcade sport. The two halves dovetail properly, utilizing smaller defensive battle simulations as puzzle parts, whereas the bigger, higher-stakes battles can dig into your inventory of missile launch keycards that you just scavenge from the dusty corners of the adventuring puzzle rooms, making useful resource conservation all of the extra very important. Tense and good.
Alternatively: Is This Game Trying To Kill Me? (50% off) – Another genre-hopping escape room journey, though this one feels closely impressed by Inscryption, as you discover a haunted videogame and the videogames inside that videogame whereas being affected by the (weirdly affable) entity lurking outdoors the rain-slick cabin window. Fun, goofy meta-narrative puzzling.
Price: $6 / £5.10 (40% off) | Developer: Bubby Darkstar
Shooty is our greatest, final line of defence in opposition to a attainable robotic invasion. Her crack group of robot-hunting buddies are goofing off on the seashore at the moment. She does not have any clear garments so she’s requisitioning her commander’s trousers at the moment. Oh, and the robots are lastly invading, however they aren’t particularly threatening so you may simply take your time and do some errands round city. Nobody appears too threatened.
Shooty Shooty Robot Invasion seems like taking part in a webcomic. A very raucous, brilliant and chaotic one. Perhaps I’m simply bizarre, however it’s one of many funniest video games I’ve performed this previous 12 months, solely actually overwhelmed out by Skin Deep. It’s 70% exploring and assembly bizarre individuals and serving to them with their every day issues, 30% mild FPS fight as you blast robots utilizing your particular high-tech anti-robot bullets that solely damage machines. It’s a surprisingly full bundle as nicely, clocking in at ~8 hours of shenanigans. Longer, should you’re trying to find every mini open world degree’s secret sidequests.
Alternatively: Fragrance Point (50% off) – Another ‘Goofing round with weirdos’ journey, with a terrific rendercore aesthetic and an esoteric sci-fi spin. You’re a brand new being, constructed to finish a really particular mission that you just by no means obtained instructed since you by accident blew up the tutorial by spitting lipstick all over the place. But hey, this area station appears to be a 24/7 social gathering zone, so simply waft!
Price: $18 / £15 (40% off) | Developer: Blue Banshee
In a match of spectacularly unlucky timing, Maliki: Poison Of The Past was an offbeat tackle the JRPG system by a French studio launched simply two days earlier than Clair Obscur: Expedition 33. It’s arguably much more French, being based mostly on a very long-running anime-tinged francophone webcomic, though no data of the supply materials is required to take pleasure in this standalone time-travelling journey in high-intensity gardening.
There is loads happening right here. Traditional turn-based RPG fight (with some timeline shenanigans); time-manipulating puzzles paying homage to Zelda, with every social gathering member bringing a brand new puzzle-solving energy to the combination; even some low-impact farming between sorties throughout the timeline in your quest to cease the titular Poison, an evil plant-entity spreading its roots throughout area and time.
It could be simple to attract comparisons to Chrono Trigger, however this one is a wealthy sufficient mixture of inspirations to really feel like its personal factor.
Alternatively: Wander Stars (33% off) – Another offbeat tackle traditional JRPG tropes, this time from Venezuela, and paying greater than a bit tribute to Akira Toriyama’s wacky world of pint-sized martial artists and screwball comedy. Gorgeous artwork, easy, fight-heavy development and artistic fight the place you gather a deck of phrases to chain into more and more foolish assault names to yell at full quantity.
Desecrators – Procedural 6DoF shooter
Price: $10.50 / £7 (30% off) | Developer: Woodhound
I’ve all the time had a gentle spot for free-flying PSX-era shooter Forsaken, a quicker, louder model of Descent. Despite an excellent (and cheap!) Nightdive remaster, it appeared doomed to fall into obscurity. But tiny studio Woodhound appears to carry a particular torch for it too, releasing this roguelike tribute out of early entry in 2025. It appears, sounds and performs nearly precisely like Forsaken, proper right down to the deliberately blurry ‘early 3D accelerator’ textures and overbearing coloured lighting, however now with close to infinite replay worth and on-line co-op help.
While Desecrators would possibly lose one thing by not having hand-crafted ranges, it does an excellent job of procedurally producing labyrinthine mazes of tunnels, chambers and fight zones to blast by, punctuated with botmatch-style ‘invasions’ by rival treasure-hunters. It’s nonetheless rising, too, with new enemies and environments added in a latest replace, together with tentative VR help for these with sturdy stomachs.
Alternatively: BRAZILIAN DRUG DEALER 3: I OPENED A PORTAL TO HELL IN THE FAVELA TRYING TO REVIVE MIT AIA I NEED TO CLOSE IT (30% off) – Another very singular tribute, though extra of a deep lower. A tongue-in-cheek dive into the world of Brazil’s early modding and game-dev scene, full of in-jokes weirdness and an AMAZING title. But even taken purely on face worth, it is a enjoyable shooter operating on the unique Quake engine.
Price: $3 / £2.55 (70% off) | Developer: Leafy Games
Short, candy and low-impact. At three {dollars}, it’s totally simple to advocate Wyrmhall, a sport about being a humorous little goblin operating an artifact-cleaning stall in the midst of an interdimensional nexus. Weirdos from throughout the multiverse wander in, present you their cool (however all gunked up) cursed/blessed/extremely harmful doodads, chatting with you as you delouse, scrub and polish them up. The artifacts, not the shoppers. Although typically they’re one and the identical.
Clocking in at only a couple hours lengthy (with no scarcity of twists and turns), this is not an intense or advanced sport, however this can be very humorous, like taking part in by an prolonged Adventure Time skit filled with gloriously wacky characters and a few enjoyable dialogue choices that allow you to embrace your internal goblin. A great reminder that ‘cozy’ gaming does not simply should be about repackaged farming life-style fantasies. Sometimes you simply wanna go Goblin Mode.
Alternatively: Trash Goblin (40% off) – Would you consider that 2025 had TWO video games about being a humorous little goblin that cleans up unusual artifacts? Trash Goblin is a bit much less humorous, however extra technical, concerned and mechanically participating, utilizing much more instruments and upcycling to make your personal goodies. Hell of a coincidence for lightning to strike twice.
Price: $14 / £11.72 (30% off) | Developer: Pocket Trap
It’s a typical lament that Nintendo has little curiosity in ‘conventional’ Zelda video games now, favoring open world grandiosity over the traditional NES and SNES-era format. Fortunately indies have you ever coated, and few do it in addition to Pipistrello. The bones are strong—all of the dungeon-crawling, puzzle-solving motion you’d anticipate, fleshed out with a cool fashionable city setting populated by rough-edged (however lovable) graffiti-styled critters, and with a number of fashionable concepts like shopping for character upgrades on credit score and paying them off over time.
The star of the present is the titular Cursed Yoyo. Weapon, mobility gadget, multifunctional puzzle-solving device and simply enjoyable to indicate off with, you will be amassing new tips for all of it sport lengthy and every one opens up fascinating new paths, making revisiting older areas participating. Use slanted blocks to hit total rooms with one spin, slam it in opposition to partitions to launch your self backwards over pits, and bypass obstacles by dragging your self alongside utilizing its string. It’s only a pleasure to make use of.
Alternatively: Zefyr: A Thief’s Melody (75% off) – ‘Retro’ extends nicely into the Gamecube period as of late, and should you’re after one thing a bit extra Wind Waker-inspired, Zefyr is a wonderful PC various. The work of a solo developer over the course of twelve years, this one’s a satisfying piratical fantasy journey with some nice puzzle-laden dungeons.
Lingo 2 – Wordy puzzlevania
Price: $7 / £5.95 (30% off) | Developer: Brenton Wildes
Loathe as I’m to utter the phrase ‘Metroidbrainia’, it feels applicable right here. Lingo 2 is a brilliantly good phrase puzzle journey by a minimalist, Minecraft-esque block labyrinth the place you work together with the world by typing letters into terminals. Simple. Except that it’s important to unlock one letter at a time like Metroid upgrades, and the phrase-and-response puzzles get painfully good, quick. Sometimes you are in search of a phrase of the inverse which means, or an anagram, or a palindrome, or a synonym, or a sequence of phrases that join a number of terminals collectively.
The deeper you get, the extra puzzles turn out to be accessible, and the extra advanced the world turns into, with secrets and techniques, hidden paths and non-compulsory areas seemingly all over the place with puzzles each spatial and lexical. My solely gripe is that the sport could be a bit US-centric, with some puzzles referring to particular American manufacturers or idioms, however I by no means discovered it too egregious. The original Lingo can be discounted, and has its personal set of puzzle mechanics so you may play them in any order.
Alternatively: Rules & Rodents (40% off) – On the opposite finish of the puzzle scale is Rules & Rodents, which is completely wordless. A cute little mouse plots a cheese heist/escape armed with a magical scroll that holds pictograms that allow or disable particular gameplay guidelines controlling each you and the adorably animated rat guards. Just a number of hours lengthy, however feels completely paced with a surprisingly dramatic finale.
Skogdal – Norwegian dirtbag deckbuilding
Price: $10 / £8.37 (50% off) | Developer: Erlend Kirkeboe, Kay Arne Kirkeboe
You cannot go 10 minutes with out bumping right into a Slay the Spire-inspired deckbuilder as of late, however few have the scribbly, dirty imaginative and prescient of Skogdal. Set in small-town ’90s Norway, you will be making your approach by the streets battling an assortment of meatheads, weirdos and wildlife, all rendered in lumpen pencil-sketch comedian model. There’s a little bit of Beavis and Butthead power right here as your crew of bizarre losers conflict with retro popular culture seen by a uniquely Nordic lens.
While every playable character brings their very own gimmicks to the desk, there is a massive focus right here on summoning associates into battle, who add their very own playing cards to your deck and sometimes add activatable powers to your social gathering. While run-based, there’s an more and more bizarre story that unfurls as you full runs, unlocking new characters (together with a knock-off Norwegian Steven Segal) and new routes by the area. Not being Norwegian, among the gags flew over my head, however most of them really feel common sufficient to land.
Alternatively: Crown Gambit (40% off) – The newest from the group behind earlier hidden gem Aetheris. A gorgeously illustrated twist on the card-battler format, cut up about 50/50 between visible novel-ish gothic knightly intrigue (with multi-choice dialogues) and party-based strategic battles. The two halves interaction, with the dimensions and form of the fight play-field shifting to replicate the prose.
Schism – Low-fi motion roguelike
Price: $7.79 / £6.50 (35% off) | Developer: Fami
Rough-edged, low-fi and abrasive in model, Schism feels just like the type of sport I devoured in my youth. The type of vaguely punk design that dominated within the late DOS shareware period. Under the deliberately tough aesthetic lies a really good, experimental tackle Binding of Isaac-esque motion roguelike shootery. Weird creatures, bizarre characters, and even weirder merchandise synergies (thoughtfully developed as this sport stewed in early entry) make this one refreshing to chew on even should you’re performed a bunch of Games Like These.
Schism is not afraid to mentally overwhelm the participant. Outside of the one small concession of pausing time as you enter a brand new room (letting you intend your preliminary motion earlier than all hell breaks appears), there’s some Ikaruga-inspired polarity switching mechanics, letting you negate crimson or blue bullets. You’d suppose that’d make issues simpler, however it simply provides the sport an excuse to blanket the display with projectiles. Intense enjoyable.
Alternatively: Rift Wizard 2 (50% off) – Another low-fi roguelike, however extra conventional in design. Positively archaic, even. Rift Wizard 2 feels most intently associated to Chaos, an early cast-em-up by X-Com designer Julian Gollop. Rather than crawl by mazes for loot, every flooring is a posh, open turn-based tactical battle demanding you employ all of your spells and summons.
My Little Puppy – Dog-based emotional devastation
Price: $17.50 / £14.69 (30% off) | Developer: Dreamotion Inc.
One of the higher-budget video games right here, launched only a couple months in the past. A foolish however usually heartstring-tugging, genre-hopping journey a couple of corgi deciding to depart Dog Heaven after catching the distant scent of their human. Antics ensue, rainbow bridges are surfed throughout, adventures by the afterlife are had and never a single likelihood is missed to squeeze Big Feels out of the viewers.
As you may think it is not particularly difficult stuff, however there’s sufficient selection throughout the journey (together with a bunch of minigames and light-weight challenges) to maintain you engaged and paying consideration. Long sufficient to maintain eyes on the display so you do not miss any of its gorgeously animated cutscenes, bridged with hand-drawn artwork. There’s an actual understanding right here of how canine transfer, particularly the inherent wigglyness of short-legged associates like corgis, which implies should you’ve ever had or misplaced a fuzzy little pal in your life, this one goes to damage.
Alternatively: Koira (50% off) – A surprisingly comparable journey, this one with a silhouetted, storybook aesthetic. A hermit and their canine take pleasure in life and nature within the mountains, interacting with wildlife, communing with the spirits and completely not entering into any life-or-death ordeals or supernatural goings on. Needless to say, the canine can be superb. They all are.
Decade – Time journey thriller
Price: $7 / £5.95 (30% off) | Developer: Last Piscean
A fantastically good piece of sci-fi narrative experimentation. After the tip of the world, three youngsters uncover a time machine. Perhaps the current may be rewritten, however the issue is which you could solely ship one particular person again at a time, with a single standing order and perhaps one merchandise, and they will should spend a decade in that period earlier than returning to base and reporting in, maybe bringing again an merchandise with them.
Every alternative is to be agonized over. The time spent previously modifications your trio. Personalities and statistics warp over time. Piecing collectively the origins of the apocalypse is simply the primary a part of the puzzle, with over 20 attainable endings relying on what factions you nudge or nurture, who you select to assassinate and which little one you select for every expedition to the previous. For a sport introduced nearly completely in (thoughtfully written) textual content and low-fi monochrome artwork, Decade is powerfully evocative.
Alternatively: No Time (35% off) – If you need your time journey rather less esoteric and extra tangible, this Back To The Future-inspired sandbox immersive sim has been in early entry since 2019, and only in the near past added the ultimate mission in its fundamental story arc, although there’s a lot but to return.
Kiloton – Real-time nuclear technique
Price: $2.50 / £2.14 (50% off) | Developer: Jack Morehart
2025 was largely a 12 months for taking part in it secure within the technique style. DLCs, acquainted genres, remasters and revivals. Kiloton is the sicko decide (I did say fewer, not none)—a minimalist, fast-paced simulation that seems like one thing lifted straight out of Wargames. The solely successful sport is perhaps to not play, however taking part in with nukes can nonetheless be fairly enjoyable. It’s a light-weight geopolitical sim the place you are ideally attempting to keep away from battle, however each nation is robotically jostling for place, with armies drawn to the place there’s any hole in defences.
Diplomacy IS an choice, however would possibly simply be denying the inevitable, and matches play out in a matter of minutes. What makes this sport particularly for sickos is that you just play it completely with the keyboard, with typed menu instructions and easy menus navigated with the arrow keys, your clicking keypresses echoed within the sport’s personal soundscape. Great for constructing pressure, and can maintain your arms shifting rapidly as issues spiral uncontrolled.
Alternatively: Chip n’ Clawz vs The Brainioids (30% off) – Would you consider that the creator of X-Com launched a brand new technique sport for 2025, and it completely flew underneath the radar? A cartoon action-strategy sport (a bit like Brutal Legend) playable the entire approach by in split-screen co-op or by way of Friend Pass. An effective way to introduce youngsters to the style, and never too shabby even for veterans.
And that is it for 2025. It wasn’t an intentional theme, however there positive have been loads of video games about terrifying apocalypses and hanging out with Weird Little Guys, weren’t there? Let’s keep away from the previous, and dangle on to the latter in 2026.
At least the videogames will likely be good, eh?
Once once more, I hope I’ve helped broaden your horizons a bit, and perhaps launched you to a sport or two to like. As all the time, take a look at my earlier roundups under (and perhaps even my Steam curator page, the place every thing I take pleasure in goes), as nearly every thing from earlier gross sales is again once more at even steeper reductions, and nonetheless pretty much as good as ever:
Until subsequent time, and completely happy new 12 months!