The Steam Spring Sale is live, and if you know where to look, you can stock up on some of the greatest RPGs ever made for less than a cup of coffee.
PC Gamer's Ted Litchfield put together a curated list of 20 less-obvious RPG picks all priced under $10, deliberately skipping the obvious heavy-hitters like The Witcher 3 and Mass Effect: Legendary Edition in favor of titles that deserve way more attention than they get. The result is a genuinely fascinating tour through decades of PC RPG history.
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The Dirt-Cheap Tier: $5 and Under
Some of the most interesting picks on the list sit at prices that feel almost illegal. Arkane Studios' debut game Arx Fatalis is down to $1.64, a subterranean dungeon crawl from 2002 that channels Ultima Underworld and Thief in ways nothing else really has since. The recommendation comes with a note to grab the free Arx Libertatis source port before diving in.
Dark Messiah of Might and Magic, Arkane's second game, lands at $2.49. It plays like a fantasy Jedi Academy and carries a reputation as one of the greatest slapstick games ever made, built almost entirely around its absurdly satisfying melee physics.
Then there's Arcanum: Of Steamworks and Magick Obscura at $3.89. Founded by several Fallout 1 developers, Troika Games built something genuinely one-of-a-kind here: a Victorian fantasy world where magic and technology clash both politically and metaphysically. The combat is rougher than Fallout 2, but the reactivity and atmosphere are unmatched.
Pathfinder: Kingmaker rounds out this tier at $2.99. Owlcat Games' first CRPG had a rocky launch, but years of patches have turned it into something special. That said, Litchfield suggests starting with the next entry on the list first.
The Sweet Spot: $6 to $8
This price bracket is where the list really starts cooking.
Pathfinder: Wrath of the Righteous sits at $5.99 for the base game, described as a 100+ hour CRPG with mind-boggling reactivity and branching paths. The full DLC bundle at $15 is called out as the real value play, adding the griffon-riding Sable Company Marine Ranger subclass among other additions. It's tied for best dollar-per-value on the entire list.
Kingdom Come: Deliverance at $5.99 is the predecessor to PC Gamer's 2025 Game of the Year. Smaller in scope than KCD2 and far easier to run, it still delivers the same grounded medieval RPG DNA that made the sequel so beloved.
Larian'sDivinity: Original Sin Enhanced Edition drops to $5.99. The combat and character building are excellent, though the skill system is complex enough that a mid-playthrough restart is practically a rite of passage.
Tyranny at $7.49 might be Obsidian Entertainment's most overlooked game. The premise is genuinely unusual: the dark lord has already won, and you're one of his enforcers sent to manage a restive province. The moral framework the game operates in is darker than almost anything else in the genre.
Skald: Against the Black Priory at $7.49 is described as criminally good, a party-based CRPG that looks like an Ultima but plays like turn-based Baldur's Gate. It apparently ends with a full tonal pivot into Lovecraftian horror that left Litchfield speechless.
Betrayal at Club Low at $7.99 is the wildcard: a nonviolent social RPG where you're a spy disguised as a pizza delivery person trying to extract a colleague from a hostile nightclub. Short but highly replayable, with only around 500 Steam reviews despite an Overwhelmingly Positive rating.
The $10 Ceiling: Obsidian and Friends
The top tier is dominated heavily by Obsidian, and for good reason.
Both Pillars of Eternity and Pillars of Eternity 2: Deadfire are $9.99 each. The first is called an all-timer CRPG with a recently added toggleable turn-based mode for its 10th anniversary. The sequel trades some of the original's razor-sharp balance for a more open-ended structure and what Litchfield calls the pinnacle of pre-rendered environment art.
Pentiment, also from Obsidian, hits $9.99. A detective game set in a Bavarian monastery where every accusation you make condemns someone to death with no certainty of guilt. It's described as one of the most emotionally devastating things the studio has ever made.
Alpha Protocol at $9.99 is the surprise entry. Obsidian's spy RPG from 2010 has a reputation for janky gunplay, but the story reactivity is genuinely remarkable. The Global War on Terror setting has aged in unexpected ways, and protagonist Michael Thorton's "Suave" dialogue persona is described as the most canceled man in gaming history.
Rounding out the list: Dread Delusion ($9.99), a Morrowind-adjacent open-world RPG with chunky PS1 visuals and Philip K. Dick-flavored storytelling, and Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodlines ($9.99), Troika's neo-noir vampire RPG from 2004 that plays like a proto-New Vegas set in the goth underground.
The Bigger Picture
What makes this list interesting isn't just the prices. It's the specific lens through which these games were selected, deliberately avoiding the titles everyone already knows about in favor of the games that tend to get overlooked even by people who consider themselves RPG fans.
The Troika Games trilogy gets particular attention: Arcanum, The Temple of Elemental Evil, and Bloodlines all appear, representing a studio that burned bright and fast in the early 2000s and left behind three genuinely distinct RPGs that still hold up. Owlcat's two Pathfinder games are framed as the spiritual successors to that era of dense, uncompromising CRPG design. The sale window won't last forever, so if any of these have been sitting on your wishlist, now's the time. Make sure to check out more:
