Steam Summer Sale 2018 on now with 1000s of deals on games

Just as the rumors foretold, the Steam Summer Sale has launched at last. Like every other annual sale Valve holds, this one offers deep discounts on many of the games in Steam's catalog. Steam veterans might not find a ton of exciting deals after years and years of sales like this, but for anyone who might be a relatively new to the world of PC gaming, the Steam Summer Sale is definitely a good time to pad your library.

Like many of Steam's recent sales, this one doesn't have any flash sales to be on the look out for. Instead, the offers posted today will live for the entire duration of the sale, with Valve highlighting different games on Steam's home page each day. There are also Summer Sale trading cards to unlock by exploring your discovery queue and spending money, so if you're a badge collector, you'll want to make sure you're completing your discovery queue each day to earn those cards.

There's usually some kind of theme to the Summer Sale, and this time around, that theme is space. More specifically, Steam users will be combating an intergalactic force that is trying to destroy all games. Valve has launched a mini-game Steam users can play to be entered to win certain games, so be sure to check that out if you want a chance at some freebies.

So, which games should you consider if you're looking to pick something up? While much of Steam's catalog is on sale, there are always a few standouts to consider, like 20% off zombie-RTS-survival game They Are Billions and 33% off PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds, which brings it down to a cool $19.99. Other games worth considering include Nioh: Complete Edition for $29.99 (40% off) and Final Fantasy XV: Windows Edition for $24.99 (50% off).

That's just a very tiny sample of some of Steam's featured deals, so be sure to do some deeper digging when you have some time. At the moment, however, Steam seems to be struggling under heavy load (which has become a common feature on day one of these sales), so you might want to wait a little while before diving in. You'll have plenty of time to look around, as the Steam Summer Sale runs until July 5, 2018.