It’s Everyone’s Favorite Season Again: Steam’s Winter Sale Has Begun

Anyone who’s been a PC gamer for longer than a week has likely heard of Valve’s famous Steam sales. A few times a year the company goes crazy with the discounts and lets gamers get their fill of all the games for which they didn’t want to pay full price.

The Steam sale has famously been home to some of the best discounts that you can find all year in PC gaming. You’ll see recent favorites, like CS:GO, with the price slashed by 50 percent, and iconic titles with even bigger savings, such as id Software’s 1996 classic, Quake, which is reduced by 75 percent right now.

Steam sales have always been great times to catch up on game series’ that you’ve missed out on. The franchise packs usually have some of the deepest discounts, and Valve hasn’t disappointed for the Steam Winter Sale. You can snag a great deal on The Witcher series; the first two games are 85 percent off, and even The Witcher 3: Wildhunt, one of the most revered games launched this year, is half price.

It’s not just games that have been out for a while that are on sale, though. Bethesda’s Fallout 4 and Ubisoft’s Rainbow Six Siege are still listed at full price, but Avalanche Studio’s Just Cause 3, which launched in early December, has been given a 20 percent discount. The Just Cause series has been one of the stars of the Steam sale for several years. You’ll often find Just Cause 2 for under five dollars, so it’s fitting that the new game is also offered on sale.

Throughout the Steam Winter Sale, Valve will be dolling out special North Pole Noir Sale trading cards. These cards will be handed out to people who make purchases, though there are opportunities to get up to three cards per day without making a purchase. Only those who have achieve Steam Level 5 or higher will have this chance, though. If you are at the appropriate level, you’ll be presented with the Discovery Queue daily, and just by viewing it, Valve will send you three free trading cards.

There are 11 cards to collect in the set, and if you manage to attain all of them, you can craft the North Pole Sale badge that earns you an emoticon and a profile background. You also repeat the process to level up your badge with each new set of cards collected. Valve said the items can be sold on the community marketplace. The company also noted that extra cards will disappear when the sale ends, so make sure you get your trades in before it does.

Valve’s Winder Steam Sale is on now and will run through January 4 at 10am PST.

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