Compared to the major seasonal sales, Steam’s near-constant, theoretically genre-specific fests have a way of making my eyes glaze over. It’s hard to feel like a sale’s worth your notice when there’s always one going on. Steam’s current genre fest, however, has my attention. Running until October 7, the Turn-based RPG Fest is offering deep discounts on games you can easily pour dozens of character-building, tactical-battling hours into.
Almost every game has a little RPG in its DNA nowadays, which means the Turn-based RPG Fest has a lot of genre space to work with. If there’s a turn-based game on your wishlist, there’s a good chance it’s currently on sale. For some ideas of where to look first, here’s a selection of discounted games I can personally vouch for as being worth your time, because they’ve devoured plenty of mine.
XCOM 2, arguably the modern standard by which all other turn-based tactics games are judged, is at a huge 95% discount for only $3/£2/€2.49. You’ll have a hard time finding a better gameplay-per-dollar ratio on hand-building a team of elite alien hunters who’ll break your heart when they’re inevitably brutalized by a chrysalid.
Following the Firaxis tactics vein, Marvel’s Midnight Suns is also enjoying a hefty price cut, currently 75% off at $15/£12.49/€15. The card-based RPG was our 2022 runner-up for Game of the Year, delivering some excellent superhero hangouts. I’ll support any game where you get to invite Wolverine to a book club.
With Metaphor: ReFantazio on the way, it’s a great time to indulge in an Atlus RPG as a warmup—assuming you’ve got a spare hundred hours or so. Persona 4 Golden cemented its place as my Persona of choice with some truly excellent, small-town slice of life vibes, and it’s currently $12/£11/€12, down 40% from its normal price.
If you’re coming off Space Marine 2 and still need a 40K fix, you can grab Warhammer 40,000: Mechanicus for just $9/£7.49/€9. Instead of power-armored Space Marines, you’ll be commanding the machine-worshipping AdMech techpriests: a 40K faction that blends far-future mechanical proficiency with ritualistic awe to make some of the setting’s best flavoring.
Sticking with scifi, Battletech is a phenomenal turn-based tactics game placing you in charge of managing a Mechwarrior mercenary lance in the midst of an interstellar civil war. It’s good enough that just writing about it made me start reinstalling it, and right now it’s only $10/£9/€10. Another great mech RPG is Into the Breach, currently $7.49/£6/€7.49, which makes a delightful combat puzzle from each of its roguelike battles.
My last recommendation comes with a few qualifiers. Mordheim: City of the Damned is clunky. It’s confusing. It’s not particularly pretty. But after spending enough time wrapping my head around its UI and mechanics, the Warhammer board game adaptation became one of my favorite mercenary management RPGs. I turned a ramshackle band of ratmen into Mordheim’s greatest combatants, and it only cost them roughly half their limbs—but it’ll cost you much less. Until the Turn-based RPG Fest ends next week, you can pick up Mordheim for just $2/£2/€2.
