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Thanksgiving Game Sale: 88 Games and Apps We Picked Out

黎方宇 · · English translation

We've gathered discount information on games released this year on Steam and the App Store.

We've gathered discount information on games released this year on Steam and the App Store.

It's Thanksgiving again, and Steam's annual Autumn Sale opened in the early hours of the 23rd and runs until 2 a.m. on November 28. Many of this year's big releases and indie games have solid discounts, some down to their lowest prices since launch.

Prices won't change during the sale. If you want to know how deep a discount really is, you can look up price history on Steam Database or IsThereAnyDeal.

Besides Steam, there's a sale on iOS too. Here are the 32 games released this year that we picked out:

Assassin's Creed® Odyssey, 166 yuan, -33%, first discount ever

After following various "Odysseys" through Mario's world, a desert you can glide across, and even outer space, this Odyssey finally goes home to Greece.

Assassin's Creed: Odyssey is the eleventh entry in the main series, released on October 5, 2018. As a mercenary you can join the Athenian or the Spartan side, explore ancient Greece's vast open world, drift across the blue water of the Aegean and the scenery of Crete, and fight in the Peloponnesian War.

The bounty system sends mercenaries from all over the world after you once you've done something bad, and the return of naval combat gives you the swagger of a master of the seas.

The game rebuilds ancient Greece from every angle. Beyond politics, architecture, and culture, you can also run into real historical figures: Democritus, Hippocrates, Socrates, Pythagoras, Sophocles.

Monster Hunter: World, 203 yuan, -34%, all-time low

Here hunters track and kill ferocious monsters in the New World, using terrain, vegetation, and the rest of their surroundings to gain an edge, and building experience in fights that keep getting harder.

The game replaced the old zone-by-zone loading with a single seamless map. The food chain and the ecosystem feel more alive, too.

Despite the uproar over being pulled from another platform, Monster Hunter: World still passed ten million in combined sales across platforms by the end of September. For 203 yuan, you can now go knead cats on this mysterious continent.

Related reading: If You've Never Played the Monster Hunter Series, Now Is a Good Time to Start

Shadow of the Tomb Raider, 189 yuan, -50%, all-time low

The last chapter of the rebooted Tomb Raider trilogy, released September 14. As Lara Croft you go deep into the Peruvian jungle to explore the lost Maya civilization, and your own dark side.

Built on what came before, Shadow's storytelling, puzzles, and combat are the best in the series. There are 19 tombs, plus a richer underwater world where you have to dodge piranhas.

The "shadow" of the title also runs through the design. Nearly every fight Lara runs into can be settled with a stealth kill, and alongside stealth skills like ropes and evasion, this entry adds a new way to disappear: smearing mud on your body.

Related reading: Shadow of the Tomb Raider Is Lara's Defining Moment — She Begins to Reflect on Herself

The Scroll of Taiwu, 57 yuan, -16%, all-time low

Its elaborate cricket-fighting system has earned it the nickname "Cricket Simulator."

A rich, complicated game system; a team of five; a lead creator who works as an architect and studied Chinese literature; a Chinese-made game that broke into Steam's top ten; foreign players demanding a localization; monthly sales above 800,000 copies. For all the legend around it, The Scroll of Taiwu is still only in beta — but for players with wuxia stamped on their brains, it has been far too long since a game arrived with this much of the jianghu in it.

Chinese Parents, 28 yuan, -22%, all-time low

The scene where you have to turn down a red envelope brings a knowing smile.

In an age when anything can be turned into a simulator, Moyuwan Games has put out this parent simulator, in which you plan a child's path from birth to the college entrance exam. For players who sat the gaokao themselves, the game is a way to make up for what their own childhoods lacked — and, by going through their parents' old choices again, to understand the position those parents were in.

Related reading: Chinese Parents Became an Unexpected Hit — What Was the Small Team Behind It Thinking, Caught Off Guard?

Frostpunk, 66 yuan, -33%, all-time low

In an age of rapidly falling temperatures, you are the decision-maker, and the decisions are about overwork. One line at the ending — "Was it worth it?" — drew a wave of mockery from Chinese internet users, and was even reposted by state media. They felt the developers had no business judging the choices they made in the game, especially when those choices came out of the collectivist stories they had grown up on, and had in fact worked.

Polish studio 11 bit studios, which made This War of Mine, moved from what war does to people to the question of survival, and built Frostpunk, which judges you differently depending on how you get through it. Secure survival while trampling on workers' rights and you may end with the line "You crossed the line."

The argument may come out of the game's model: below the manager, everyone is a laborer, with almost no class difference, no exploiting class in sight, and the fruits of labor all going to those who did the work. Once classes divide, the game gets far more complicated. None of that stops Frostpunk from being an excellent management game.

Far Cry® 5, 124 yuan, -50%, all-time low

The ecosystem's abundant wildlife is one of the game's highlights.

Ubisoft's shooter, set in a small Montana town, where you fight a cult, build a resistance in a cut-off place, and tear "Eden's Gate" apart. You'll run all sorts of missions, get close to wildlife, and — most important — fish.

Related reading: Far Cry 5 Moves the Setting to American Soil — Your Enemy Is a Rural Cult

Valkyria Chronicles 4, 134 yuan, -50%, all-time low

Sega's tactical game set in an invented history, following a Federation Army squad in the "Second Europan War" of 1935. Valkyria Chronicles 4 returns after several years, and back on PC and consoles it looks a little short on new ideas — but for longtime players, having the classic back is enough.

Overcooked! 2, 67 yuan, -26%, all-time low

Overcooked! 2

Compared with the first game, this one adds online multiplayer, new dishes like sushi, burgers, and pizza, and new maps including a sushi restaurant, a magic school, a mine, and a swimming pool. A good buy for players who think they have too many friends.

Life is Strange 2, 25 yuan, -51%, all-time low

Compared with the time-rewinding power of the first game, the choices in Life is Strange 2 are far thornier.

The first episode of the sequel to this interactive narrative adventure, though the plot has little to do with the original. It follows the new characters, the Diaz brothers, on the run across the country, and lets you steer how they handle their powers. Its links to forest survival and pop culture also give this entry richer detail.

Jurassic World Evolution, 60 yuan, -60%, all-time low

In Jurassic World Evolution you can get a close look at the classic dinosaurs from the films.

A management game built on the world of the Jurassic World films, turning on revenue, escape prevention, and technology upgrades as you look for the road to a successful dinosaur park.

Graveyard Keeper, 49 yuan, -30%, all-time low

Graveyard Keeper

Also known as Graveyard Story, in which you run a cemetery, guide souls to their resting place, or, when resources run short, put the bodies to some other use...

NBA 2K19, 99 yuan, -50%, all-time low

NBA 2K19

The annual edition. Whether you get on board is up to you.

More discounted games can be found on Steam's Autumn Sale page.

These iOS Games Are Worth Buying

Mobile platforms turned out one good game after another this year, and quite a few new ones have dropped to all-time lows for Black Friday. We've put together a list; you can look up price history on App Sliced, AppShopper, or PriceTag.

Radiant One [¥18→¥6]

A short game about dreams and shadows: fly freely through a dream while looking your own fears in the face.

Suzy Cube [¥25→¥6]

A 3D platform adventure. Jump across floating blocks to take back stolen coins.

AMON [¥18→¥12]

Using AR, follow Amon, the god of wind, to statues in museums around the world and put their fragments back together.

Reigns: Game of Thrones [¥25→¥18]

Swipe cards to help familiar characters govern their realms. Will your choices change their fate, or will they fail to escape the rule that "all men must die"? The first two games, Reigns and Reigns: Her Majesty, are both down to 6 yuan.

Related reading: A Fast-Decision Game of Thrones — Death May Be a Daily Occurrence, but Someone Still Has to Sit on the Iron Throne

Valleys Between [¥18→¥12]

The valley becomes a game board. In each level you place water and trees in exactly the right spots so animals can adapt, settle, and breed, until the valley is full of life.

G30 [¥30→¥12]

A game that simulates cognitive impairment, and plays something like a 2D Shadowmatic: rotate fragments to assemble images from memory, and recover those memories bit by bit.

the Sequence 2 [¥12→¥6]

The sequel to the puzzle game the Sequence [¥12→¥6], a rare game built around programming puzzles. The first game's quadrilaterals become hexagons here, which raises the difficulty.

The Bonfire: Forsaken Lands [¥25→¥12]

Run a village at a freezing camp, gather resources, and hold off monster attacks. It plays much like Kingdom: New Lands.

Dandara [¥98→¥45]

A side-scrolling pixel adventure. Dandara ignores gravity, leaping between the walls and ceilings of the world of Salt and killing enemies with a range of weapons. It has been called a mobile Castlevania, and just made TIME's ten best video games of the year.

Vandals [¥25→¥18]

Stay out of the police's line of sight on the streets of major cities and leave your graffiti behind. The game includes real graffiti works. The same studio's Type: Rider, about the history of printing, is also discounted.

Layton: Curious Village in HD [$9.99→$6.99]

An HD iOS port of a ten-year-old NDS game, a detective adventure built on puzzles.

Magibot [¥25→¥3]

A platform strategy game. Follow a small robot exploring an alien planet, clearing levels with magic that stops time and gets you through obstacles. Plug In Digital's A Normal Lost Phone, Another Lost Phone, and Pocket Kingdom have all dropped from 18 yuan to 3 yuan.

Oddmar [¥30→¥18]

A Viking-themed physics platformer, beautifully drawn and finely animated.

The Company Game [¥12→¥6]

A puzzle game made by a 14-year-old developer, with puzzle elements including AR.

FRACTER [¥25→¥12]

Follow the protagonist as he uses light to explore a world covered in darkness.

Istanbul: The Digital Edition [¥45→¥30]

The official digital version of the board game Istanbul.

Pocket City [¥25→¥12]

A city-building game with unusually rich detail.

AntVentor [¥12→¥6]

The adventures of an ant.

Hexanome [¥12→¥6]

Another minimalist hexagon-based programming puzzle.

Some older games are on sale as well. Here are 52 of them:

And these 4 apps:

The cover image comes from Pixabay; images in the article come from Steam and App Store pages.

Translated from the original QDaily article. Original publication date retained.