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Steam Summer Sale 2025: Hidden gems
Inspired by the recurring topic every Steam sale over at /r/GameDealsMeta:
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What are some lesser-known Steam games that you recommend?
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Are there any genres you’d like hidden gem recommendations for?
If you're interested in previous Hidden Gem topics, you can find them here.
For popular recommendations and general purpose sale discussion, please use the main Steam Sale topic.
Optional: Feel free to categorize your recommendations by number of reviews (as a proxy for popularity)
| Category | Maximum Review Count |
|---|---|
| Shockingly Overlooked | 20 |
| Under the Radar | 50 |
| Buried Treasure | 150 |
| Underrated Great | 500 |
| Cult Classic | 1000 |
| Gem Graduate | 1000+ |
I will buy and gift (need to be friends on Steam, if only for the transaction to work) 5 copies of RTS called Original War. You can read my review and I'm answering any questions.
The game is based on a sci-fi novel Last day of creation which I also read and it is great representation of the book's story.
The game is still being updated and developed, supports widescreen and modern resolutions (I play at 1920x1080) and offers unique take on real time strategy genre.
This offer is up until the game is on sale and until I have gifted 5 copies. Think twice, I would like to give it to people who will play it, not to be another game in your backlog. The main campaigns of the game could be played in 15 hours each (I think), there are two of them with others available through workshop. The game probably has live multiayer community (which I'm not part of, I love singleplayer).
EDIT: Reply first here, then we'll continue from there. I'm not accepting friends if I don't know who they are.
I remember checking out this game after reading your review and thinking it looked interesting. At $2.59 I just grabbed it for myself. I definitely need to give it a play.
If you come to play it, I'd be glad to hear your thoughts!
Definitely, just need to find time to fit it in. Always down for a RTS campaign.
Finally got around to playing Original War. I was not sure of a better place to respond to you. I made it to the second mission and I am giving up for now. I may go back in the future.
Interesting concept. Go back 2 million years to move the McGuffin to Alaska. Start and immediately died. Maps are crazy small. Units move crazy slow. I guess they are more important because you level them up, etc. Again, all interesting ideas. I think I am just in the wrong mood to deal with the jank currently.
Well, that is why the game is original :-) It is very dofferent than your normal RTS. This is really about micromanagement and thinkng twice before committing to some action.
I promise once you have your base and can start research and building vehicles, it would get better (not in the first few mission where you actually can, but in longer run).
It is probably hard game to get into nowadays, but I really believe it pays off. It is very unique and you have to approach it very differently.
And just so you know - I believe everyone died in mission 1.
You can speed up the game by using plus or minus on Num Pad, but while this speeds up movemnt, it speeds up action and thus dying. I use it sometimes but even me knowing al the things that will come screw up aometimes and get someone killed this way.
Oh - and sometimes being bold is a viable strategy.
Yeah there was definitely interesting aspects, I just wasn't in the mood. I'll go back to it at some point but wanted to at least update you. It is cool that it's still being updated. I was shocked that the game ran perfectly and required no tweaking.
I do appreciate some good jank, so I'll update when I get back to it. It kind of reminds me of Dawn of War 2 and the idea behind leveling up small squads.
I hope you'll come to like it. Iz is great game with nice progress through the story. More so if you are able to keep all characters alive as they add in to the tasks/quests/atmosphere via their dialogue.
Second USA mission is also quite hard but from third one you will likely find it easier. Not easy, mind you :-)
Please keep me updated if you come back to the game.
Also available on GoG but not on sale right now. IsThereAnyDeal shows it often goes to 1.99$ on both platforms.
I'd thought I'd made my purchases this sale and now you've shown me there's a golden age RTS I didn't play.
I hope you will like it at least half as much as I do. If you remember, come back, please, and let me know what you think about it.
It's on sale on Steam through the 25th for 1.99$ US in case you know anyone else who was waiting to grab it.
I already bothered all my friends a lot woth it so I exhausted all the people around me - no more friends to buy it for. But my offer stands here - who wants it, ask, I will buy (in sale, I'm cheap :-D ).
I took a look at the Wikipedia article on the book and definitely added it to my reading list, so thanks!
I didn't know about the book, I learned of its exostence thanks to Original War game. I managed to get one used and in Czech language (my native), which I consider lucky. I should re-read it again. It is quite light reading but it is also a nice sci-fi story.
Shockingly Overlooked (≤20 reviews)
Clutter's Greatest Hits - Collector's Edition
Buried Treasures (≤150 reviews)
Hidden Capybaras With Orange
PictoQuest
Sidewords
SuperTaxCity
Cult Classics (≤1000 reviews)
Proverbs
Gem Graduates (1000+ reviews)
Ziggurat 2
I really enjoyed Proverbs. So much that I also completed 2024: Mosaic Retrospective and Mega Mosaic (both of which are free if one is interested in trying the gameplay. I recommend the retrospective one over Mega). I've just noticed Mosaic of The Pharaohs, which I'm going to immediately pick up. I've really enjoyed playing these on my Deck.
These games scratch the same itch as Hexcells. If you at all enjoy these kind of spatial logic puzzles and play them to the point that you don't really have to think about it anymore, then both these Mosaic games and all of the Hexcells games are worth your time.
I went down a Minesweeper/Hexcells rabbit hole and landed on Tametsi. Currently $1 and I feel like it’s worth way more. 100+ well-made (non-random) puzzles that I stared at for hours.
Seconding this. Currently working my way through Tametsi and it is giving me the same feels that I felt when I first played the Hexcells games. Both are excellent.
Thanks for the recommendation! It seems that Mosaic Retrospective is free, but Mega Mosaic isn't (though it's currently on sale for $1.99). Also there's a pack with it as well as Proverbs and Mosaic of the Pharaohs for about $11 bucks so I think I'll do that and pick all three of them up at the same time.
It's definitely worth picking up all three(four) of the games. They have given me maybe a hundred hours combined of playtime and so much of that has been just chilling and vibing, solving through the puzzles and listening to a podcast of music.
I love how these are the chillest, most relaxing, zen-type games I've ever seen.
...and then Ziggurat 2 which is the exact opposite (fast-paced twitch shooter), lol
Great recommendations! Knew of some of these, but not others!
Lol, I needed to do a lot of calming down this year for... reasons...
If anyone likes Visual Novels, or wants to try one out, I highly recommend Steins;Gate, it's only 2,69€. The anime is also great, but the VN's visuals are really beautiful, and it's worth it exploring different branches of the story.
In short, it's a time travel story, where the protagonist manages to find out a way to send SMS's into the past through a microwave. He also has a few screws loose, which makes him highly entertaining to read and listen.
I am mad scientist! It's so cool!
Wow, I didn't realize the anime was born from a video game. (Granted, I do not follow anime or visual novels much anymore.) Very cool!
Desecrators is an underrated great. It's a 6 degrees of freedom shooter set in derelict asteroid mines and space stations; more of an indoor FPS where you can move along and turn around every axis in zero gravity than a space sim. If you've played any of them, think Descent or Forsaken, but with procedurally generated levels and an upgrade system. The game is extremely tightly designed. Controlling the ship has the perfect weight to it, the weapons have the perfect punch and timing, the enemy roster covers a lot of bases and the combat feels awesome. There is also a ≤4 player cooperative mode which I have yet to try.
Vactics falls under the radar. It's a turn-based combat puzzle game with procedural levels. If you ever played Hoplite on mobile phones, this one is clearly inspired by it, but not a clone. If you haven't played Hoplite, maybe Into the Breach is a good comparison. The game rewards you with energy (basically health) for destroying multiple enemies in the same turn, but you also lose energy every turn, so it strongly incentivizes clever play and synergetic combinations of upgrades which you'll get to pick from a limited selection every few encounters, forcing build variety across runs.
Overlook Trail is a shockingly overlooked beautiful, mostly linear, dreamlike game with light, well-designed puzzles and mini games. The production value here is absolutely great. Visual style, music, sound... Everything left me feeling refreshed after playing it. It's like a digital spa treatment. I don't want to be too specific because going into it as blind as possible will probably give you a better experience. It's a rather short game, and it's one of those where I'd recommend that you set aside a few hours (3 maybe?) and get cozy to play through the whole thing in one sitting to get completely marinated in its atmosphere.
I'll go ahead and plug my own game Acid Web here too. I'm of course not in a good position to call it underrated or overlooked in any way, but it's certainly underperforming. It's an arcade style twin (analog) stick shooter with an endless, procedurally generated acid techno soundtrack and 100 hand-crafted waves, but I wanted to avoid rote memorization, so there's enough randomization that you have to think on your feet. Think Robotron 2084 meets Geometry Wars.
Vactics sounds very interesting! Haven't played Hoplite, but Into the Breach is one of my favorite games. Might have to make a purchase!
Steam deck compatibility is unknown (and nothing on protondb either), but one can always hope it works anyway, as it feels like a good game for the deck.
I can finally contribute here with a great game which is shocking under rated. A little Buried Tresure for you with only 63 reviews right now: Tipston Salvage
This is a really neat little Overcooked style 4 player couch coop game which my friends and I have been enjoying. It's got a good number of levels and they encourage you to come back and redo them for platinum and diamond times later on.
It's also 50 percent off right now for under $10 (I think, I dunno what the price is outside Norway lol)
Yeah, a pretty cute game. Finally someone at least doing a little to fill that Storage Inc void in the world. It's not quite it, but at least it's something and actually has user levels, the only thing Storage Inc really needed. A shame Storage Inc 2 went the wrong direction, but at least Tipston is trying something.
Looks really cool! It's $8.49 in the US. Only 1 of those 63 reviews is negative and it's complaining about the lack of keyboard controls. Great find!
King of the Bridge is a Cult ClassicTM fairy chess game. It's very silly, but as someone who hasn't played chess in a long while, it was a fun way to think about the game in a new way.
If you like the classic Metroid style I recommend the Cult Classic A Robot Named Fight. I find a it's a game I keep coming back to when I just want to grab a controller and zone out for a few mins without any commitment. Awhile back it even had a source code release.
The Abandoned Planet is definitely a Buried Treasure . A wonderfully animated Myst-like adventure game.
For a colony management/puzzle game the Underrated Great Farlanders is a lot of fun and I already have 40 hours in it.
Robot Named Fight looks super cool!
And Farlanders reminds me a lot of Rimworld. I can totally see the colony management part, but I'm intrigued by the puzzle elements to it. Could you elaborate a bit on that?
Yeah, when you want to terraform a rock or crater etc into usable land you are limited to using randomized puzzle pieces that touch multiple tiles, sometimes that's a good thing allowing you to convert multiple tiles but sometimes it means sacrificing a good one for a bad one. You do get a choice of 3 different pieces that you can move and rotate to find optimal placement. You can also scrap them and buy new ones but that takes time and resources. There is technology to do single tile conversions later in the game but again that gets expensive.
I think the puzzle aspect is less about finding the perfect 'tetris' piece though and more about managing the budget of resources wisely.
If you like low-res, retro, turn based, squad tactics games, check out the "Cult Classic" Mainframe Defenders currently on sale for $0.77!
Wow that looks super cool! And for less than a buck, damn. Thanks for the suggestion!
Edit: and there's even a free demo/prologue!
Cult Classic
Approaching Infinity | $13.49 | (95% positive) - Found this great game just a few days ago. It's a scifi RPG with rogue-like elements that feels like a mix of FTL and Caves of Qud. It's really easy to get into and, as the title suggests, is a near limitless game. I've had a blast playing this game and would love to see it get more exposure.
If you're interested, the demo on Steam let's you fully play the game up to sector 7 and continue playing that save if you decide to buy the game.
In the Steam app there's no demo link for me, but if I go to the website (not logged in), then there's a big "demo!" button... Weird.
Roadwarden - I have been playing this today, and it's very much worth it. Basically an exploration CYOA type game, but there is a DnD element to it where you pick up clues from conversation, able to choose the tone of responses to NPCs, and make better choices by remembering the warning of the shopkeeper 20 minutes earlier when you are on the road. Very fun.
I might have just skipped the categories if I had known I would only use three of them. Oh well! Maybe it helps someone.
I learned from this exercise that, although I try out a lot of games, the ones I put time into tend to be too popular to clear the "hidden gem" bar. I guess that's somewhat natural.
Anyway, onto the games!
Buried Treasure
Natsu-Mon: 20th Century Summer Kid- $19.99
This is a great game to play to escape into something simpler and wholesome. You get to play a Japanese kid hanging out unsupervised in a small town. You'll fish, dig for buried treasure, make friends with the locals, join in on town events, and just explore the area. It has a wonderful cadence wherein playing an in-game day makes for an immensely satisfying play session. Gives me warm and fuzzy feelings every time I play it.
Cult Classic
Cauldron- $11.99
It's a bunch of mini-games wrapped in some kind of RPG? I'm not deep enough to really understand the meta-layer very well yet, but the mini-games are great! The games are played actively, but the progression mirrors that of an idle game: you'll buy upgrades that will make your numbers go up faster. The music is surprisingly good to be as minimal as it is.
Cryptark- $3.74
Fly your armored suit into alien ships to get cool stuff. It's actiony, but it's more than action. It requires you to be a bit more strategic than a twin-stick shooter, even though the way you actually shoot mirrors that. Often feels tense, in a good way. Nice art too.
Voxelgram- $3.99
This is one of my favorite nonogram puzzle games. This one is in 3D, and it feel really cool to chip voxels away until you come out with some sort of 3D shape. This isn't my favorite nonogram game (that one isn't on sale, having just come out), but it's a really good one.
Gem Graduate
Go! Go! Nippon! ~My First Trip to Japan~- $4.99
An excellent piece of virtual tourism. I learned a ton about Japan, and it felt nice to virtually visit a place. I wish there were more games like this that made you feel like you were in a real place. It's not "immersive" in the way that may imply, but it still captures a feeling of being somewhere else, even without in any way tricking my brain into thinking I am somewhere else.
Wayfinder- $9.99
This makes my list despite having 20,000+ reviews because MOST OF THEM ARE WRONG! This is a cool action RPG (but not in the way that Diablo or Dark Souls are action RPGs) that started life as an exploitative free-to-play MMO before ejecting from that business model and becoming a small-scale multiplayer game with everything unlocked through in-game progression. It has a nice art style and tons of game to play through. Really fun to play with a friend or three.
Voxelgram looks right up my alley, thanks!
Pillars of Eternity and its sequel are both 75% off.
My backlog of unplayed games is getting stupid this summer...