The Steam Winter Sale is open and you can vote on the Steam Awards while you’re browsing

Cyberpunk, Stardew, and Hades are the best-sellers

We’ve made it to the end of the year, and that means it’s time for the Steam Winter Sale, which is hosting I-don’t-even-wanna-know-how-many PC game deals until January 5 at 10:00 a.m. Pacific.

Lots of players are buying Stardew Valley (it’s $9.99 just in time for the huge and heartfelt 1.5 update), Death Stranding ($29.99), Sea of Thieves ($19.99), Hades ($19.99), Borderlands 3 ($19.79), Halo: The Master Chief Collection ($23.99), The Forest ($9.99), Oxygen Not Included ($12.49), Disco Elysium ($23.99), and Half-Life: Alyx ($44.99), based on the best-sellers list. (Cyberpunk 2077 is number one.)

Crusader Kings III ($39.99), Satisfactory ($23.99), Spiritfarer ($22.49), Wasteland 3 ($41.99), and Deep Rock Galactic ($20.99) are time-sinks worth considering. I also have a soft spot for Planet Zoo ($22.49).

It’s also time for the final audience votes for this year’s Steam Awards – a ceremony I don’t think many of us take too seriously but still have fun with all the same. If you’re logged into Steam, you can vote for your favorite finalists across ten categories, and the winners will be announced on January 3, 2021.

The 2020 Game of the Year prize will go to either Death Stranding, Doom Eternal, Fall Guys, Red Dead Redemption 2, or dear sweet Hades. I’m also interested to see where the Most Innovative Gameplay award goes – it’s split between Noita, Teardown, Superliminal, Control, and Death Stranding.

The more I hear its name mentioned, the more it sounds like a good idea: I should totally (but not really) pick Death Stranding back up over the break. I’m bound to be so bewildered by the controls, menus, and overall gameplay flow that I may need to find a refresher video or something along those lines. Love ’em to pieces, but some games are not easy to return to after a months-long hiatus. Daddy’s trying, BB.