One of my favorite series is super cheap on Steam right now: $31 gets you 2 Metroidvanias, 2 XCOM-like strategy games, a city builder, and a clever deckbuilding RPG

SteamWorld Heist 2
(Image credit: Thunderful)

Here's a great deal I always recommend whenever it comes up: as part of publisher Thunderful's big sale, me🌊aning $31.11 can get you a whole lot of very different but visually unified games featuring steampunk robots.

The SteamWorld series feels a bit like the spinoff games to titans like Mario or Zelda – all unified by a similar cast and theme, but totally distinct in their genre and mechanics, and pretty much universally good if not great. It's anꦐ anthology guided by cute little robots,💃 basically, and it's been some of my comfiest comfort food for years. Here's the full list of games in this discounted SteamWorld essentials bundle:

If I had to recommend just three games of this lot, ꦉit would be SteamWorld Dig 2 (my personal favorite of the series), SteamWorld Heist, and SteamWorld Quest: Hand of Gilgamech. They're all criminally cheap, and strong examples of their genres. That said, all of these games are worth a look, and doubly so with a discount. The only one missing is the SteamWorld that started it all: the Nintendo DSi game SteamWorld Tower Defense. 

The only perfect video game is finally a JRPG thanks to a new indie channeling a 31-year-old cult classic SNES Tetris game that never left Japan.

Austin Wood
Senior writer

Austin has been a game journalist for 12 years, having freelanced for the likes of PC Gamer, Eurogamer, IGN, Sports Illustrated, and more while finishing his journalism degree. He's been with GamesRadar+ since 2019. They've yet to realize his position is a cover for his career-spanning Destiny column, and he's kept the ruse going🌠 with a lot of news and the occasional feature, all while playing as many roguelikes as possible.