I have a massive Steam library, and like most PC gamers I know, I’m always looking to add to it. Will I actually play the games? Maybe. Will I complete all of them? Certainly not. But I’m caught in a negative feedback loop of picking up new games constantly for pennies on the dollar, and Steam is feeding my addiction more than ever before.
How? With Steam bundles. Steam bundles aren’t anything new, but I’ve seen a stark uptick in them over the last several months. They mostly revolve around similarly styled indie titles, offering a small discount of around 10% if you buy two or three games in bulk. That’s not why I’ve taken advantage of Steam bundles so often over the past several months, though.
The hack
Here’s what’s great about Steam bundles — you don’t need to buy every game in the bundle. Or, at the very least, you don’t need to re-buy every game. Steam takes into account games you already own when you look at a bundle, and you’ll get a discounted price on top of the games you already own.
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Let me give you an example. Last night, I picked up the Castlevania Dominus Collection for a bit of vampire castle-crawling on an upcoming trip I’m taking. The game is on sale at the time of writing for 20% off, knocking the $25 list price down to $20. I picked up the collection for $18, however. The Dominus x Dead Cell bundle includes Dead Cells, the Return to Castlevania DLC for the game, and the Dominus Collection. I already owned Dead Cells and its DLC, so I got a straight discount on the Dominus Collection.
It’s only $2 here, but wait, it gets better. You’ll often find games that are a part of several different bundles, allowing you to double dip on discounts. A great example of that is Selaco. If you’re unfamiliar, Selaco is a first-person shooter in early access that’s built on the original Doom engine. No, it doesn’t play like Doom, but it has that undeniable retro feel that I’ve yet to see perfectly replicated in the deluge of “boomer shooters” available on Steam.
This one game is in three different bundles. You can pick it up bundled with Echo Point Nova, Mullet Madjack, and the recent Fallen Aces. I picked up one game, and suddenly, I was able to get discounts on a handful of other related games. You don’t need to buy the game through Steam, either. As long as the game is in your library, you’ll get the discount. Combine that with third-party key sellers and a revolving door of deals on games, and you can save quick a bit of money.
An odd recommendation engine
The bundles on Steam have turned me onto new games, too. I never would’ve found out about Echo Point Nova had it not been for the Selaco bundle, and I would’ve completely missed one of the most inventive first-person shooters I’ve played in the past decade. Maybe I would’ve discovered the game on my own, and I might’ve even bought it. But being pushed to consider a new game and getting a solid discount on top of it? That seals the deal quickly.
I’ve found bundles more consistently with indie games, but some larger titles get bundled up, as well. For instance, there’s a bundle with Metaphor: ReFantazio and Persona 5 Royal, which you can, again, get on a discount when you own either game. Both of these games are on sale at the time of writing, too, which is factored into the overall discount you get. That’s an inexpensive way to pick up one of the best games of 2024.
The main downside is that there isn’t an easy way to see what bundles are available on Steam. Sometimes they’re listed alongside a game included in a particular bundle, but other times they aren’t. For instance, you can find the Mullet Madjack and Fallen Aces bundle with Selaco, but not the Echo Point Nova one. You can just search “bundle” on Steam, but that returns thousands of irrelevant results. I wouldn’t recommend it.
If you want to keep an eye on bundles, here’s what’s worked best for me. I liberally add games to my Steam wishlist, even if I’m only remotely interested in playing some of them. The wishlist on Steam shows you the lowest price available for a particular game, so if that game is part of a bundle when you can get a discount based on your current Steam library, you’ll see that lower price. That’s how I found out about the discount on the Castlevania Dominus Collection in the first place.
Bundles for PC games aren’t anything new, and Steam itself has been doing them for years. However, there’s been a clear uptick in bundles for high-quality games, particularly focused on similar publishers and developers. For instance, developer Motion Twin has a bundle where you can pick up its new Windblown game at a discount if you already own Dead Cells (the developer’s first game). These odds and ends add up quickly, and they’ve built my Steam library massively in the past few months.