This Weekend's PC Game Deals - There's a fix for every gamer in the current winter sale

By Neowin · · Hot!
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This Weekend"s PC Game Deals is a roundup of games - old, new, or soon to be released - that are available at a great price and can be activated on Steam, Origin, or Uplay - sometimes even good old games that are DRM-free.

After a year of relatively modest “on the house” offers, the Origin store is finally offering a more modern games for gamers to download for free. Mass Effect 2 is regarded by many critics as the best of the original trilogy, and all you need to grab it is an Origin account and the Origin client, which you can set up here. Also, if you happen to like Bioware’s space opera and are willing to spend $10.99, you can get the entire series from DLGamer, and Mass Effect: Andromeda - the next installment into the series - is on the horizon as well.

The Humble Store has two interesting deals, the first of which is promoting their “Humble Monthly” subscription, which is a good way for passionate gamers to discover hand-picked indie games, timeless classics. The monthly package sets you back only $12 (even less if you choose a recurring plan), and also includes a AAA title to spice things up – the February offer is XCOM 2, an excellent, turn-based game that has you guiding humanity’s fierce resistance force against an alien invasion.

There are a number of other perks to Humble Monthly, such as indie games developed exclusively for subscribers, a 10% discount on purchases from the Humble Store, and the fact that 5% of the proceeds go to a charity.

“The Humble Assassin’s Creed Bundle” is still running for a couple more days, and you can choose from a few tiers, depending on which games from the popular franchise interest you the most. If you pay $1 or more, you’re guaranteed to get the original Assassin"s Creed, and three 2.5D spin-offs: Assassin"s Creed Chronicles: India, Assassin"s Creed Chronicles: China, and Assassin"s Creed Chronicles: Russia.

If you spend more than the average ($8.42/€7.91/£6.91 as of the time of writing this), you’ll also get Assassin"s Creed Liberation HD, Assassin"s Creed III + Tyranny of King Washington: The Infamy (DLC), and Assassin"s Creed II Deluxe Edition. If you are willing to part with $15 or more of your cash, you get Assassin"s Creed Unity and Assassin"s Creed Brotherhood on top of everything – and just as with the monthly subscription, 5% of what you spend will go to a charity.

If the previous promotions weren"t enough, we’ve also hand-picked some of the best deals on PC games that you can find across all online stores. Some of them are flash sales, so act quickly if you don’t want to miss them. Also, if you happen to be looking for console games as well, check out the list of Xbox games that you can grab with Gold (two of which were announced alongside a price slash of the Xbox One S).

Preorder rush

Resident Evil VII: Biohazard – Unlike its predecessors, the new entry in the Resident Evil franchise series no longer takes place from the third person perspective, and instead opts for a more claustrophobic first person field of view. It will feature elements of puzzle and survival horror, and will feel more like a remake than a continuation, taking ingredients that worked well in Resident Evil 4 into the present, for a modern Resident Evil experience (also VR-compatible). Even if you’re not a fan of the series (but especially if you are), you should consider pre-ordering it for $39 (€37/£32) from Games Planet.

Tom Clancy’s Ghost Recon Wildlands Deluxe Edition – If you’re looking forward to Ubisoft’s next tactical third-person shooter game, and are drooling over the idea of having the freedom to explore the Bolivian landscapes where the missions take place – unlike all the other entries in the franchise – you can pre-order the deluxe edition for a little over $39 (€37/£32) from Games Planet.

Sniper Ghost Warrior 3 – Contrary to the fast-paced action of games like Call of Duty, this one will force you to calculate your every move, blend in the environment, and do a lot of damage with carefully placed, surgical shots from your trusty sniper rifle. The developers have also made this entry more like open-world games such as the Far Cry series, which means that you can tackle your objectives as a special ops sniper during the Georgian civil war in the order of your choosing, instead of following a scripted series of missions.

If you are a Sniper Ghost Warrior veteran, or are looking for an alternative to the Call of Duty’s and the Battlefields of the world, you can pre-order this one for $39 (€37/£32) from Games Planet.

For Honor – A hack and slash game set in a fantasy medieval-inspired world, where you fight as a Viking, a knight, or a samurai for the honor of your faction, using a variety of weapons and special skills, as well as a hand-to-hand combat system dubbed “The Art of Battle”. You can pre-order the deluxe version for about $39 (€37/£32) from Games Planet.

Syberia 3 – In the era of release-now-patch-later, Microids has chosen to make sure that it comes out as polished as possible, even though this means a delay of several months – which makes this worth pre-ordering, if only to encourage more publishers to do the same. Syberia 3 is a continuation of Kate Walker’s adventures in Europe and Russia, and can be pre-ordered for only $31.99 from DLGamer.

AAA Bombs

There are a number of popular AAA titles on sale, but we’ve only selected a few of them that are currently priced near or below their historical low:

Indie Gems

OlliOlli – You can grab this Tony-Hawk’s-Pro-Skater-goes-arcade game for only $3.24 at Humble Store. Its 50 addictive levels are filled with challenges and will have you waste unbelievable amounts of time, so just buy it already!

Barrier X – A superfast racer from HypeTrain Digital in which you have to guide a space ship to avoid flat shaded walls while following a neon track. This will test your reflexes, and it is currently free on Steam – although you can pay its $3 price if you want to support the developer.

Standby – Actually far from it: this is another 2D platformer gem from the developers of Barrier X, but this time you speedrun through a neon “glitched” world filled with all sorts of obstacles, which you can avoid or destroy in your rush to the finish. It does cost $7.99 on Steam, but several game critics think it’s worth every penny.

The Expendabros – A ridiculously fun crossover between the famous Broforce and the infamous The Expendables 3, and also one of the few indie games on Steam with over 10000 positive reviews. It’s free, so you have no excuse not to try it.

Antichamber – For $4.99 you can experience a game world like no other, one which will twist your brain to no end unless you think outside the chamber. The only way to progress through this psychological puzzle is if you step out of your comfort zone, and the same can be said about spending tens of dollars on AAA games while there are plenty of great indie games out there that are waiting to be explored for so much less of your hard earned cash.

DRM-Free

Shadow Warrior Classic Complete – If you’re bored with Shadow Warrior 2 and its ultra-realistic graphics and want to experience the original, know that you can grab it for free on GOG. It’s not the Redux version – which features GOG Galaxy achievements and remastered graphics, but the gameplay is unchanged, and you can run it on pretty much any PC from the last decade.

We"d like to know: Which of the current PC game deals do you think is the best bang for buck?

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