The thing you should know about me is: I love a ticker. A little breaking news ticker beneath an interview chyron? Incredible. Stock prices in bold greens and angry reds on the outside of an important building that’s probably in New York? Amazing. I’ve been known to stare at the weather updates in my taskbar for days at a time, like a dog hypnotised by swirling colours on a television screen.
I tell you this because Fanatical’s Red Hot sale has a little section right at the top of the page informing me that—at time of writing—it has 9,375 deals live right now. Which is a lot. That’s a lot of games. So by way of a public service (and also because it’s my job) I’ve gone through those deals and picked out the ones I reckon are worth your time.
Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2
Back when I scored it 90% in our Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2 review earlier this year, I called KCD2 “the most specific RPG I’ve ever played.” Neither time nor expansions have changed that. Warhorse’s rambling historical adventure in 15th-century Bohemia is still one of the best and strangest games to come out this year. It’s an open-world romp that blends historical fidelity with narrative lunacy, that’s constantly surprising you with the depth of its simulation and capacity to respond to your choices, and its protagonist—Henry of Skalitz—is possibly the most charming lad to headline a videogame in years.
It is, so far in 2025, easily my GOTY, and if you’re the kind of person who still lusts after the immersive sims and Bethesda RPGs of yesteryear, you’ll find a lot to love in it. Just don’t try to equip armour plating before you’ve put on a padded gambeson first. That’s just ludicrous.
Link: Fanatical | Price: $46.79 / £38.99
The Alters
It came out two weeks ago, got 90% in our The Alters review, and it’s already on sale. I feel like I’m looking at some kind of once-in-a-lifetime natural wonder. The Alters is a very clever survival-esque game that puts you in the shoes of a handyman stuck solo in a huge spaceship on an alien world. He has his talents, sure, but he can’t run this entire place by himself. What’s a boy to do?
Well, obviously, a boy is to generate a whole bunch of clones of himself plucked from his own alternate lifetimes. Need research done? Spin up a version of yourself that actually finished his university studies. Need a miner? Then you’ll be wanting the guy who stood up to your abusive dad rather than leaving home.
It’s a very clever concept filled with some great survival stuff and a surprisingly gripping narrative. Even as someone who tends to run a mile from the word ‘survival,’ I’ve had a great time with the game.
Link: Fanatical | Price: $24.49 / £20.65
Dragon’s Dogma 2
Gamers only want one thing: to painstakingly design weird little guys and then to throw them off cliffs/at enemies. The Dragon’s Dogma games comprise the only series brave enough to let this fantasy flourish unimpeded, and it’s for that reason they remain a cult classic to this day.
If you’re not familiar, Dragon’s Dogma 1 and 2 are Capcom’s take on a lot of the stuff you recognise from more familiar western fantasy: there’s dragons (and dogma), mages, wretched villagers, and feudalism as far as the eye can see. But layered on top of it is a bunch of weird systems that make the whole thing indescribably its own, and none of those systems is weirder or more prominent than the game’s pawns—NPC assistants you create yourself then teach and trade around with other players in their own games, like a bizarre hybrid of Baldur’s Gate, Tamagotchi, and The Sims.
Link: Fanatical | Price: $23.79 / £18.35
Frostpunk 2
It’s too hot. But what if it was too cold? Such is the unfathomable fantasy presented by Frostpunk 1 and 2, citybuilders that see you try to eke out something resembling civilisational survival amid a massive, ice-based apocalypse. Frostpunk the first was all about surviving the elements, but the second game goes and makes things even harder for you by layering in a bunch of politics.
You don’t exercise untrammelled executive power anymore: you have to contend with factions, parliaments, and ideologies all while trying to make sure you don’t run out of coal and oil and kill everyone. Think you’ll rule benevolently? Come back to me a couple years from now when circumstances have forced you to fill the streets with militarised deathbots intent on quelling dissent by any means necessary. Heavy is the head that wears the crown. Also, cold. The head is cold, too.
Link: Fanatical | Price: $21.59 | £18.23
Pathfinder: Wrath of the Righteous
PCG’s Ted Litchfield is perpetually in a state the scientific community calls ‘full sicko mode’ over Wrath of the Righteous, and I don’t blame him. If you’ve got a CRPG-shaped hole in your heart ever since you completed your 1,872nd run of Baldur’s Gate 3, Pathfinder is there to make it all better.
This is Owlcat, not Larian, so we’re dealing with an RPG that’s a bit crunchier and stat-heavy than you might be familiar with from BG3, but I strongly recommend you give it the time necessary to wrap your head around it. It’s a game about leading a crusade against demonic hordes, meticulously crafting your build, and, yes, romances. Romances as far as the eye can see.
Link: Fanatical | Price: $7.99 / £7.19
A few more bangers
And, hey, before I send you on your way, here are a few more things going cheap that I think are worth your time.
- Silent Hill 2 Remake | $32.89 / £28.19
- Metal Gear Solid: Master Collection Vol 1 | $44.99 / £37.49
- Dishonored 2 | $2.69 / £2.24
- Resident Evil 4 Remake | $16.79 / £13.85
- Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night | $4.79 / £4.19