Black Friday has come and gone, but many of its most notable deals are still going. We have a big roundup of the best deals we’re seeing more generally, but here we’ve updated our dedicated roundup of the best video game discounts we can find for Cyber Monday, since a metric ton of them remain available.
Major retailers like Amazon, Target, Best Buy, and GameStop are still in the midst of their holiday sales, as are the digital storefronts for Xbox, Nintendo, and PlayStation. And while many of the steepest high-profile game discounts we’re seeing are for consoles, PC gaming storefronts like Steam, Epic, GOG, and Humble are still running sweeping sales as well, bringing price drops on several indie games we like in particular.
We’ve pored over as many advertised offers as we can find from all of these promotions and listed the genuine discounts we like below, spotlighting a few particularly notable offers along the way.
Before you dig in, note that the sales haven’t made in-demand hardware like the PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X, Nintendo Switch OLED, or Nvidia’s newer RTX GPUs any easier to buy, though the lower-power Xbox Series S does look like it’s available in some capacity. Either way, if you’re seeking to stuff your gaming backlog even more, have a look at our curated selection below.A PS Plus membership is still required to play most PlayStation games’ online multiplayer modes, but being a subscriber nets you two or three bonus games a month. We’ve seen 12-month subscription codes go for a little less in the past, but either way this is a good deal for those who need to top up their membership.
This a simple one: if you plan to pick up a few new games at PlayStation’s digital store anyway, several retailers are currently offering $100 in PlayStation Store credit for $90. Note that this credit can be used toward subscriptions like PlayStation Plus in addition to new games, media, or DLC purchases.
Saying Game Pass Ultimate is one of the best values in gaming has become a meme at this point, but that doesn’t mean it’s not true. The service pairs Xbox Live Gold—Microsoft’s equivalent to PS Plus—with access to a growing library of games for both consoles and PC, a surprising number of which are genuinely worthwhile. The service might not be worth it if you tend to play one game repeatedly for months on end, but if you like to hop from new release to new release, it’s a good deal at its MSRP, let alone this sale price.
This deal matches the best price we’ve seen on a three-month membership for new and existing subscribers. If you only use a gaming PC, though, note that Microsoft is running a promotion that gives brand-new users three months of Game Pass for PC for $1.
This is the primary Switch bundle deal Nintendo is running across retailers this Black Friday. It’s not exactly a showstopper, pairing a five-year-old game and three months of the company’s largely inessential Switch Online service with the non-OLED version of the console at no extra cost. It’s also been going in and out of stock throughout the week. But if you’re hoping to buy someone their first Switch, Mario Kart 8 Deluxe is still a good time, and, if nothing else, the Switch Online trial will let them rent a bunch of classic NES and SNES games. It’s also worth noting that this bundle includes the most recent version of the standard Switch with slightly improved battery life.
Breath of the Wild is another relatively old one, having launched in 2017, but it remains borderline essential for any new Switch players. It’s still not something you play for the narrative, but its contingent, freeform open world has held up remarkably well in the four years since the game’s launch.
The game was briefly available for as low as $27 last week, but at $35, this is still about $10 below than Breath of the Wild‘s typical street price.
Time to complete: 50-100+ hours
Our review called Metroid Dread nothing less than “the best Switch-exclusive game of 2021.” It’s a game that takes the “dread” portion of its title seriously: it’s not afraid to overwhelm and frustrate you, and it has the score and visual design to match the intended mood. It’s also content to not stray too far from the structural confines of its predecessors. But if you’re craving a classic 2D adventure on the Switch, one that won’t cater to the player’s every whim, Metroid Dread should satisfy. This is the first significant discount we’ve seen.
Time to complete: 9-13 hours
It Takes Two is a 3D platformer that can only be played in co-op (online or local). Its rom-com-style story—in which an unhappy couple on the brink of divorce becomes trapped in the bodies of lookalike dolls made by their daughter and are forced to “fix” their relationship to go back to normal—is weird, on the nose, and surprisingly dark at points. (One level has the parents deliberately trying to make their daughter cry by killing her stuffed elephant, which makes sense in context, but… yeah.) Still, it controls well, and it’s one of the few narrative-based games that feels explicitly designed with cooperative play in mind: rarely does it force you and your partner ever to do the same thing at the same time.
It does tend to stretch its various levels’ ideas a bit past their expiration date, and while it’s never particularly difficult, I’d expect a little bickering between you and your partner if the two of you aren’t at least somewhat versed in platformers. Still, the bulk of it is fun, and at this new, low price, it’s worth a shot for any couple looking for a new game to play together. For Xbox players, note that this one is also on Game Pass.
Time to complete: 12-15 hours
One of the year’s best PS5 exclusives, Returnal is a third-person shooter with elements of roguelites and psychological horror games. You play as Selene, a space pilot trapped in a time loop on a hostile alien planet. It is a Difficult Game™, as, like most roguelites, it forces you to start from the beginning when you die. It’s hard to talk about what makes the game stand out without delving into spoilers, but let’s just say the stiff challenge makes perfect sense in context, and the whole production has an unusually keen eye for detail. Its world, mechanics, and narrative work in harmony in a way that’s uncommon to big-budget games, frequently producing moments of both extreme tension and haunting beauty.
The game had technical issues at launch, as our review noted, but after finishing it a couple months ago, I can say those issues appear to have been rectified. A recent update also added the ability to save your progress mid-run, so players no longer have to rely on the PS5’s sometimes buggy rest mode. In any event, while we briefly saw the game for as low as $30 last week, this is still a nice dip from Returnal‘s $70 MSRP.
