Steam Summer Sale 2025: How the deals work

The Steam Summer Sale deals will be hitting the store on June 26, 2025. Plan ahead to save money, collect cards, and fill your library with great games.

Steam Summer Sale deals: Shop without making mistakes

The Steam Summer Sale offers follow a fixed pattern that is easy to use once you know it.

• Official schedule and smooth start: June 26, 7 p.m. CEST to July 10, 2025: Valve will be lowering prices worldwide during this period. The rollout happens in waves; logging in ten minutes before the start time prevents shop congestion and gives you access to freshly released trading cards. A glance at the event banner shows your personal countdown.

• Wishlist as a personal radar: Add any potential game to your wishlist, tag it with tags such as “deck verified” or “co-op,” and enable email alerts. On launch night, Steam will notify you of any price drops in real time, eliminating the need for long scrolls. After purchase, click on the “X” to clear the list so that new favorites remain visible.

• Check price history instead of staring at percentages: Open the “Price History” tab in SteamDB: A green bar means the new best price, orange indicates previous lows. “Regional” confirms that the euro exchange rate displayed is correct. This allows you to see whether it’s worth waiting for the fall sales.

• Understanding the 30-day lock: If a publisher increases the base price, the game cannot be discounted for 30 days. This explains why there are no discounts on new DLC collections; SteamDB shows the date of the last price adjustment in the price graph.

• Make clever use of bundle logic: With collection packs, Steam first deducts all individual discounts, then adds a package bonus and removes content that you already own. If only one DLC is missing, it often ends up in your shopping cart for a few cents. Check briefly whether separately purchased add-ons would be cheaper – this pays off for story RPGs such as “Cyberpunk 2077.”

• Make deliberate use of the refund window: Two hours of playtime and 14 days of goodwill are enough to test performance, controller layout, or co-op stability without risk. If you encounter any problems, the form will usually refund the amount to your wallet on the same day.

• Keep an eye on hidden costs: Load your wallet with euros in advance or use cards without foreign currency surcharges; some banks charge up to three percent in exchange fees. Location spoofing via VPN puts your library at risk, as Valve considers region spoofing a breach of contract.

• Capcom: “Resident Evil 4 Remake,” “Monster Hunter Wilds,” “Street Fighter 6,” and “Dragon’s Dogma 2” up to 87% off.

• Electronic Arts: “Star Wars Jedi: Survivor” –80%, “EA Sports FC 25,” “Dead Space,” “It Takes Two,” “Battlefield 2042” up to 85% off.

• Avalanche Studios: Just Cause 3, Just Cause 4, Mad Max, Rage 2, theHunter: Call of the Wild up to 80% off; prices will remain the same after the sale.

• Ubisoft: Far Cry series (3–6 incl. DLC) between 70% and 85% off, promotion ends on the first weekend of the sale.

• NIS America: Ys VIII, Ys IX, and Ys X: Nordics celebrate 38 years of Ys with up to 50% off until July 10.

Badges, cards & market – digital added value

Discounts are disappearing, but collectibles, points, and profile cosmetics remain as long-term rewards.

• Collect trading cards automatically: For every €10 spent, Steam will give you an event card. A set of ten cards will be turned into a badge with 100 XP, a background, and an emoticon. If you complete additional game badges during the sale, you will receive another card for each new badge.

• Click through the Discovery queue every day: View twelve curated games, collect a free card, and you’re done. This click ritual takes less than a minute and reduces the number of missing cards, even if your budget is small.

• Time market prices cleverly: Immediately after an event starts, cards are scarce and demand is high. Those who sell their surplus in the first 48 hours can often finance an indie title. Prices drop significantly from the second weekend onwards, so buy any missing cards very early or on the last day of the sale.

• Points shop as a long-term bank: 100 points per euro spent, no expiry date. Large animated profile backgrounds cost around 3,000 points; after refund, unlocked items remain in your profile.

• Publisher quests for extra XP: Capcom distributes a special badge when a demo is launched from the publisher hub; EA rewards certain in-game achievements from “EA Sports FC 25” with bonus points. These mini-tasks are free and earn you extra XP.