Steam Summer Sale Slaps Down A Significant Steam Deck Discount

Today's the day, PC gamers. The day we all both dread and delight—the start of another legendary Steam Summer Sale. There are tons of killer discounts on PC games, of course, and we'll tell you about some hand-picked deals on some darn-good games in a moment. First up, though, let's talk about these Steam Deck price cuts.


The discount you get depends on the tier of Steam Deck you buy. As the image above describes, the base model comes with 64GB of eMMC storage and normally runs $400; with the 10% discount, you're looking at $360. The next step up improves both storage speed and capacity with a 256GB NVMe SSD, and it also improves the discount: some $80 down to $450. Finally, the top-tier SKU includes a glass screen, a fancier carrying case, and a 512GB SSD; that model gets a 20% discount putting it at $520, or lower than the usual price of the 256GB version.

Even if you desperately desire a handheld gaming PC, you might be given pause in your Steam Deck purchase by the existence of similar systems with superior hardware, like the ASUS ROG Ally, One-Netbook OneXFly, an AYANEO machine, or perhaps a GPD Win device. All of these systems have their advantages, but they all have one big disadvantage next to the Steam Deck, and that's their use of commodity hardware and a Windows OS.

By comparison, the Steam Deck runs a bespoke operating system on semi-custom hardware. It offers a superior user experience to any Windows handheld, and it also has better battery life than most of the aforementioned machines thanks to its excellent efficiency. Are we saying that the Steam Deck is better than these other systems? Not universally, no. It does still make a completely valid choice in the face of these other options, though—especially with a 20% discount on the sticker price.


With that out of the way, let's talk about some game discounts. We didn't spend a lot of time trawling the store; the big story is about the Deck, really. Still, there are some price cuts that can't be ignored, and the first one on our list is Final Fantasy VII Remake Intergrade. If you've been keen to play this wholly-re-created version of the first third of the most popular Final Fantasy title, you won't find a better price than the 43% cut it's just had. That puts the game at $39.89, as its starting price is $70.


Japanese publisher CAPCOM has had a series of super hits lately with Street Fighter 6 and the Resident Evil 4 remake, but the company's also celebrating its 40th anniversary. To that end, it has an extremely deep 78% discount on the 40th Anniversary Pack bundle which includes ten Steam titles comprising a total of twenty-five games. There's an excellent variety, with titles ranging from the awesome open-world fantasy RPG Dragon's Dogma: Dark Arisen (confirmed for a sequel next year), through the original Resident Evil and Devil May Cry games, and even cult classics Okami and Strider.

If you're not feeling that, Capcom's also got great deals on some of its other releases. Resident Evil 8 is down to $20, and the previous games in that franchise including the RE2 and RE3 remakes, can all be had for less than $10 each, with older titles going as cheap as $4.99. The Monster Hunter franchise is on some pretty deep discounts too; you can pick up Monster Hunter World or Monster Hunter Rise, the two most recent titles in the franchise, for $15 each.


Bethesda's got a pretty interesting bundle available right now, too, but you might want to skip this paragraph if you'd like to keep July free. The complete versions of the third, fourth, and fifth Elder Scrolls games—that's Morrowind, Oblivion, and Skyrim, including all of their DLCs and expansions—are available together as a single bundle for just $20. That's an incredible amount of open-world fantasy action-roleplaying for the money.


If you're about the open-world action but not so much the role-playing, you can pick up the best cowboy game ever made for just $20. Rockstar's Red Dead Redemption 2 came out over three years ago at this point, but the PC version has drastically improved visuals and excellent performance compared to the console versions, and it still looks and plays fantastic. If you missed out on this when it was new, there's never been a better time to step into the shoes of Arthur Morgan.


Meanwhile, if you're into the shooting but prefer it to be sci-fi-flavored, CD Projekt's Cyberpunk 2077 is available for $30, or even better, you can buy the game and pre-order its Phantom Liberty expansion for just $55. Not bad considering the expansion is going to be $30 by itself, and CD Projekt Red says that it is the biggest game expansion the company has ever created. Cyberpunk 2077 launched in a sad state, but after three years of updates it's really shaped up into a quality game and one of your author's favorites.


While we're talking about first-person games, we have to point out that Bethesda has a second bundle you may find interesting, especially if you're a new Steam user just building your library. The DOOM Franchise Bundle includes every extant Doom game, from the original release in 1993 all the way up to Doom Eternal, and it even includes Doom 64—the real "Doom 3". You get the re-made games as well as the original releases to play if you want, and the whole thing is just $34.


Finally, we have to shill for a few of our favorite indie games. Doom fans should absolutely snag Hedon Bloodrite, which is 52% off right now at $13. Environment-destruction parkour bullet-time quick-retry shooter Severed Steel is marked off 60% to $10; if that word-salad description sounds interesting at all, just buy it now. Megahit Rogue-like action title Hades is half-off at $12.49, and in the same genre, Dead Cells is discounted the same amount to the same price. Finally, awesome isometric Rogue-like gun-porn shooter Synthetik: Legion Rising is 75% off, making it just $5.

Let us know if you check out any of these games, if you snag a Steam Deck, or if there's a deal we missed that you want to point out to your fellow fans of HotHardware.