Steam Halloween Sale 2016: Best Games to Buy
Here's all the games that are worth picking up in the Steam Halloween sale this year.
This article first appeared on USgamer, a partner publication of VG247. Some content, such as this article, has been migrated to VG247 for posterity after USgamer's closure - but it has not been edited or further vetted by the VG247 team.
It's not the grand Steam Summer Sale or the magnificent Steam Christmas Sale, but Valve has launched its Steam Halloween Sale today. Steam has a whole host of titles on sale until November 1, after which time all of these great deals will hide again until the Holiday Sale in December. Here's some of the games you should think about picking up for this sale.
Dying Light - Enhanced Edition, The Following Expansion
- $29.99 - 50% Off [Windows]
If you can stomach the first-person viewpoint, Dying Light is one of the best zombie parkour games ever. Okay, it's really the only zombie parkour game, but what the game does, it does well. Players are thrown into the zombie-infested city of Harran on a mission to find one man. Run and leap over zombies as you scavenge supplies to craft new weapons and armor. And don't look down.
This edition is an improved version of the original Dying Light game, alongside the game's signifcant story expansion: The Following. The expansion takes players outside of the city, with new weapons and the addition of vehicles. Now in your buggy, you can tear across farmland, mowing down zombies. While Dying Light is its own unique thing, The Following feels like a zombie-stuff Far Cry.
From my review of the expansion: "The Following isn't really Dying Light anymore. It's a different game based around the same concepts. The high point and flow state of Dying Light was in leaping from rooftop to rooftop, running in an unbroken line across a wild and uneven city with ever touching the ground. In the Following, it's tearing across the countryside in your buggy, doing damage to zombies as you pass, but never fully stopping your mad ride. The Following feels like a melee-focused Far Cry, while Dying Light was its own beast. Luckily, the shared save system means when you get tired of The Following, you can just jump over to Dying Light. Everything carries over seamlessly."
Dead by Daylight
- $13.99 - 30% Off [Windows]
Dead by Daylight is a 4v1 horror game where four players are survivors, while the last player is the Killer. The Killer spends the match trying to kill the Survivors, while the Survivors do their best to avoid being killed. With a great team of Survivors, Dead by Daylight is a blast to play. With a poor team, at least you have some decoys.
Even better, Dead by Daylight just received new DLC, featuring Michael Myers, Laurie Strode, and Haddonfield from the Halloween films!
Sunless Sea
- $6.45 - 66% Off [Windows, Mac]
In the Victorian Gothic universe of Fallen London, you have to navigate your ship through a pitch black ocean. Sunless Sea is like FTL; every shot is your only shot. Find loot, upgrade your ship, and recruit unique officers. Will you make it through, lose the sanity of your crew, or turn to cannabalism to survive?
Outlast
- $4.99 - 75% Off [Windows, Mac]
Outlast is a genuinely frightening first-person survival horror game. You play a journalist who find himself trapped in the Mount Massive Asylum while investigating its secrets. Unfortunately, you're not a fighter, so you have to run and hide if you want to live through the night. Armed with little more than a night-vision camera, can you find out what's going on at this horrific location?
Outlast does not mess around. In fact, it's one of the few games I won't play for too long or in certain situations. You will slip up, the monsters will find you, and you will die. Of course, you'll probably enjoy it.
Lakeview Cabin Collection
- $2.49 - 75% Off [Windows, Mac]
Lakeview Cabin Collection is a loving homage to 70s and 80s horror films. Players are thrown into the shoes of camp goers and friends, trapped in a horrific situation. Using their abilities and any tools you can find, players have to survive the night.
Bob took a look at the game last year and found it to be a enjoyable sandbox experience.
"The real tension in Lakeview comes from the fact that you'll never know when this enemy will appear--which reminds me a lot of Friday the 13th's NES adaptation. If you're spotted, the killer will make a beeline in your direction, and while characters can only take a few hits before dying, the environment offers a lot of areas to hide safely. Though the killer's appearance is always meant to be a surprise, Lakeview tends to drop some helpful warnings into your lap; come out of a cabin, for instance, and you'll see a message written in blood that wasn't there before, accompanied by a creepy piano sting. You also have to make sure characters who aren't under your control stay out of harm's way, too--leave them lingering too long, and you may return to see your former friends splayed open like beef carcasses."
Wolfenstein: The Old Blood
- $9.99 - 50% Off [Windows]
MachineGames suprised everyone with its reboot of id Software's classic with Wolfenstein: The New Order. The Old Blood is The New Order's lean, meaner, and more violent little brother.
"The Old Blood is solid fare that offers plenty to get your teeth into. It's priced right, is very well produced, and its dialog has some excellent moments of deadpan humor. It's not particularly long – offering perhaps seven or so hours of campaign gameplay, and a bunch of challenges that are unlocked along the way – but there are few games that offer the kind of rip-roaring action that The Old Blood does," said Jaz in his review of the game.
The Last Door - Collector's Edition
- $1.99 - 80% Off [Windows, Mac]
The presentation might be low-resolution, but The Last Door is a genuinely great point-and-click hoor adventure. In Victorian England, Jeremiah Devitt journeys to an abandoned manor after a cryptic message from an old friend. Dive into the Lovecraftian darkness and unearth long buried secrets. We don't have a review here on USgamer, but the Last Door is definitely worth your while.
Resident Evil 4
- $6.99 - 65% Off [Windows]
The first of three very similar horror games starts with the pioneer. Resident Evil 4 left behind the foundation established earlier in the franchise for a more action-oriented style of play. Focused more on "survival" than horror, Resident Evil 4 puts Leon Kennedy up against horrible mutated hordes.
"From its outset, Resident Evil 4 practically dances on the grave of survival horror," said Bob in his look back on the series. "Instead of forcing players to clumsily steer him through cramped, dark hallways, RE4 tosses Leon into a relatively open landscape begging to be explored. Rather than taking the form of static images, these polygonal environments offer plenty of context-sensitive actions to send Leon flying through windows, scaling ladders, hopping over obstacles, and taking leaps of faith while hordes of enemies nip at his heels."
Dead Space 2
- $4.99 - 75% Off [Windows]
After surviving the events on the USG Ishimura in the first Dead Space (also on sale!), engineer Issac Clarke finds himself trapped on the Sprawl, a space station in orbit around Saturn. Unfortunately for Clarke, the Necromorphs that plagued him on the Ichimura have taken over the city. Armed with weapons and engineering tools, Clarke must find his way off of the station. Of all the various clones and homages to Resident Evil 4, Dead Space and Dead Space 2 are some of the best.
The Evil Within
- $9.99 - 50% Off [Windows]
Shinji Mikami's return to Resident Evil 4-style survival horror may not have been executed as well I'd have liked, but it's a still a pretty good game. Step into the shoes of Detective Sebastian Castellanos as he makes his way across pretty much every horror trope setting imaginable. If you're starved for survival horror, you can beat this price, especially not for this game.
Through the Woods
- $17.99 - 10% Off [Windows]
Through the Woods just came out yesterday, hence the low discount. I still think it's worth highlighting. Through the Woods is a Norse horror adventure, featuring a mother wandering through a haunted forest looking for her son. The game is framed by the protagonist relating her story to investigators and is steeped in myths and legends from Norway. I really enjoyed my brief look at it last year and hope the final product stands up to that experience.