13 Best PC Game Deals on Steam This Week — May 2026

The Steam Spring Sale ended back in March, but the deals page hasn't gone quiet. Two big sales are running this week — Deckbuilders Fest (ends May 11) and the Activision Publisher Sale (ends May 21) — and there are real prices worth grabbing before the windows close. Balatro at $6.39. Inscryption at $4.19. Slay the Spire at $6.24. Black Ops 6 at $28. Modern Warfare II at $27.99. Below: 13 deals worth your money this week, sorted by what's expiring fastest. Plus the honest call on what to grab now and what to wait on for the Steam Summer Sale (June 25).

What's Actually on Sale Right Now

Two sales overlap this week. One ends in days, one runs another two weeks. Knowing which is which is the difference between paying $6 for Balatro and missing the window entirely.

Sales currently live on Steam:

• Steam Deckbuilders Fest — May 4 to May 11, 2026 (10:00 AM PDT cutoff). Up to 95% off across 2,800+ card-based games. Ends in days.
• Activision Publisher Sale — May 7 to May 21, 2026. Up to 67% off Call of Duty back catalog and select Activision titles. Two weeks left.
• Steam Free Weekend — limited weekend window — two free-to-play titles each weekend (rotates — check the front page).

Sales NOT live this week (don't get confused):

• Spring Sale 2026 — already ended on March 26. Won't return.
• Summer Sale 2026 — June 25 to July 9, 2026. The next big one — for anything not on a flash sale this week, this is the patient buy.
• Ocean Fest — May 18 to May 25, 2026. Starts next week. If your wishlist is heavy on Subnautica, Raft, Dredge, Stranded Deep — wait one week.

The honest framing: this week is a deckbuilders week and a Call of Duty week. If you want anything outside those two genres, the Summer Sale on June 25 will give you better discounts on the same wishlist titles.

Deckbuilders Fest — Top 5 Picks (Sale Ends May 11)

Deckbuilders is the genre that ate PC gaming. Balatro hit 5 million sales by January 2025. Slay the Spire 2 generated $108 million in its first month of Early Access. Monster Train 2 sits at 95% positive reviews. The genre's mainstream now, and Valve's themed fest is the deepest discount window of the year for these specific games — themed fests typically dig harder into niche genres than even the Summer Sale does.

The sale ends Monday, May 11, 2026 at 10:00 AM PDT (1:00 PM EDT, 5:00 PM UTC, 7:00 PM CEST). After that, prices revert immediately.

1. Balatro — $6.39 (20% off)

Poker mechanics layered with roguelike Joker cards. Won Best Independent Game and Best Debut Indie at The Game Awards 2024. Average concurrent players still hover around 12,000 on Steam alone. The 20% discount looks small — that's because Balatro is still selling massively at full price and rarely needs to deepen the cut to move units. This $6.39 mark matches the historical low.

Best for: anyone who's never touched a deckbuilder. The poker hand structure is already familiar — you skip the genre's usual learning-curve cliff.

2. Inscryption — $4.19 (60% off)

Card horror with an actual mystery wrapped around the deck. Won 2021 Game of the Year at the Independent Games Festival. Uses a physical weighing scale instead of an HP bar, turning every damage point into a tangible moment. The less you know going in, the better — don't watch trailers, don't read reviews past "buy it." This is a near all-time-low price.

Best for: players who like games that hide what they really are.

3. Slay the Spire — $6.24 (75% off)

The original. The deckbuilder template every other game on this list is influenced by. Yes, Slay the Spire 2 is now in Early Access — but it's currently sitting at "Mostly Negative" reviews and isn't on this sale because of it. The original is finished, polished, and the cleanest entry point to roguelike deckbuilders that exists. 75% off is the historical low.

Best for: anyone who wants to play the deckbuilder before deciding whether to gamble on the Early Access sequel later.

4. Monster Train 2 — $9.36 (25% off)

The sequel that landed at 95% positive on Steam. Adds equipment cards, room-effect cards, and 10 distinct factions. Mechanically deeper than the original Monster Train and a step up in production value. The 25% cut is modest because the game is still relatively new — but $9.36 for a freshly released hit-rated deckbuilder is a real deal.

Best for: existing Slay the Spire / Monster Train 1 fans wanting the next mechanical evolution.

5. Marvel's Midnight Suns — $8.99 (85% off)

The deepest absolute discount in the Deckbuilders Fest. Tactical card-based superhero strategy from Firaxis (the XCOM team). Gets unfairly dismissed as "the Marvel game" — the actual card-based combat is genuinely great, the production values are absurd, and at $8.99 you're paying less than a movie ticket for what was a $60 release. The trade-off: heavy visual-novel "social mode" between battles that some players find dull. Skip the cutscenes, the combat carries it.

Best for: XCOM fans who want a card-based variant. Skip if you bounce off Marvel branding.

Activision Publisher Sale — Top 4 Picks (Sale Ends May 21)

The Activision Publisher Sale runs May 7 through May 21 with discounts up to 67% across the Call of Duty back catalog plus Tony Hawk remakes, Crash Bandicoot, and a few dustier classics. Two weeks of runway here — less urgent than Deckbuilders, but the prices on older Call of Duty entries are at or near historical lows.

6. Call of Duty: Black Ops 6 — $28.00 (60% off)

The most recent Call of Duty before Black Ops 7. Down from $70. This is the steepest cut a current-cycle Call of Duty has seen — typically these don't drop below 40% until the year is fully over. At $28, it's the cleanest entry point for the modern Black Ops sub-series, plus you get access to all the multiplayer modes and Warzone integration.

Best for: anyone who skipped Black Ops 6 last year and doesn't want to pay $70 for Black Ops 7.

7. Modern Warfare II (2022) — $27.99 (60% off)

Not the original 2009 Modern Warfare 2 — the 2022 reboot. Still considered one of the strongest single-player Call of Duty campaigns of the last decade. The multiplayer is no longer the meta (it's been superseded by Black Ops 6/7), but for the campaign alone at $27.99 it's worth it.

Best for: single-player Call of Duty fans. Skip if you only care about current-meta multiplayer.

8. Black Ops Cold War — $19.79 (67% off)

The deepest cut on this list. Set in the 1980s — Cold War-era espionage campaign that's genuinely great even years after launch. Multiplayer is still active. Zombies mode (Outbreak) is one of the better Zombies cycles in the franchise. At $19.79 it's a no-brainer pickup if you missed it during launch.

Best for: Zombies players + Cold-War-aesthetic fans.

9. Call of Duty (2003 Original) — $9.99 (50% off)

The original. WWII campaign that launched the entire franchise. Showing its age — the visuals are early-2000s and the AI is dated — but at $9.99 it's a piece of FPS history. Worth picking up alongside Call of Duty 2 (also $14.99) and World at War (also $14.99) if you want the early-CoD trilogy in your library.

Best for: CoD historians + WWII shooter fans.

4 More Worth Grabbing This Week

Beyond the two main sales, four standout discounts running concurrently — these aren't tied to a publisher event so they could disappear without warning, but right now they're live and worth flagging.

10. Loop Hero — $3.74 (75% off)
A tiny minimalist roguelike that loops you through a single map while you build the deck of tiles, monsters, and rewards. Won critical praise on launch and still holds up. At $3.74 there's no excuse not to try it.

11. Dicey Dungeons — $3.74 (75% off)
A charming dice-based deckbuilder where every character is a dice you've been turned into. Six fully different campaigns. Great for short play sessions on Steam Deck.

12. Monster Train (Original) — $4.99 (80% off)
The first one. Card-based tower defense crossed with deckbuilding. Cheaper than the sequel ($9.36 above) and still arguably the better entry point if you want the cleanest version of the formula. 80% off matches the all-time low.

13. Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 1 + 2 (2020 Remake) — $14.99 (62% off)
Bundled into the Activision sale. The 2020 remake of the original Tony Hawk games — completely rebuilt, all the original tracks intact, multiplayer included. At $14.99 it's near the all-time low for the bundle.

The Smart-Buyer Strategy — Now or Wait?

The Steam Summer Sale launches Thursday, June 25, 2026 and runs through July 9 — that's 46 days from now. Summer is historically Valve's biggest discount window of the year, with average discounts above 66% and indie titles routinely hitting 80-90% off. So the question every week between now and then is: do I buy now or wait six weeks?

Three honest paths:

If it's on this list (the 13 picks above) — buy now. Themed fests like Deckbuilders Fest typically push deeper genre discounts than the seasonal sales. Balatro at $6.39 is unlikely to drop further in Summer Sale — it'll match this price at best. Inscryption at 60% off is at its historical low. Activision picks expire May 21 — Summer Sale won't necessarily re-list them. Don't gamble on a deeper cut that isn't coming.

If you want Subnautica, Subnautica Below Zero, Raft, Dredge, Stranded Deep, Sea of Thieves, or any survival/ocean game — wait one week. Steam Ocean Fest runs May 18 to May 25 and will have deeper discounts on these specific titles than the broader Summer Sale.

For everything else — wait for Summer Sale on June 25. Anything not in the deckbuilder genre, not from Activision, and not survival/ocean themed will be cheapest in the Summer Sale window. AAA wishlists, RPGs, simulation games, racing games — all of these are typically discounted more in Summer Sale than in any themed fest.

One universal rule, regardless of which path: always check SteamDB price history before buying. A "75% off" tag isn't always the lowest a game has been. Sometimes a lesser-advertised flash sale a few months ago hit deeper. SteamDB shows the full chart.

The Smart Way to Pay for Steam Games

Steam itself doesn't get cheaper than its own sale prices. But there are two ways to stretch your dollar further this week:

1. Steam Wallet codes at a discount. Third-party retailers regularly sell Steam Wallet credit at 5-10% below face value. A $50 Steam Wallet code at $46-47 means every game you buy this sale window costs effectively 5-10% less than the sale price tag. Stack with the sale discount and you're getting deeper savings without waiting for Summer Sale.

2. Buy region-locked Steam keys for non-Steam-published indie games. Many indie deckbuilders (and most of the Activision titles) are sold as Steam keys by third-party authorized retailers, often 20-40% below the Steam store price even during sale windows. These activate directly into your Steam library — same game, same achievements, same Steam Cloud saves, just bought outside the storefront.

Got questions about which deal to grab first, whether a specific game is at a real historical low, or how Steam Wallet codes work? Hit our live chat and we'll help you sort it.

Related Reads

• Subnautica 2 — Everything You Need to Know Before May 14 — the most-wishlisted game on Steam, launches into Early Access this week (relevant if you're waiting for Ocean Fest)
• Everything Coming to Xbox Game Pass in May 2026 — the cross-platform alternative to buying outright on Steam
• Forza Horizon 6 — Everything You Need to Know — Xbox + PC's other major May 19 launch