The GOG Games Festival begins with 1200 deals and up to 90% off
Metro Exodus Gold, Cyberpunk 2077 and free Quake 2 RTX.
GOG has kicked off their 2021 Games Festival, which runs from today (August 19th) until September 2nd. GOG is promising "releases, announcements, 1200+ deals", and so far all three components appear to be in place - including 20 demos of recent or upcoming indie titles - nice! Here are some of the highlights from our roving correspondent.
First, let's briefly cover the announcements. Psychonauts 2 is coming out next week at GOG, on August 25th. Also joining the GOG catalogue is red planet sandbox Occupy Mars: The Game, point and click thriller Slender Threads, charming adventure game Eastward and 2D action RPG No Place for Bravery.
More immediately, those 20 demos are available for download now. I had a quick nose around and the likes of Death Trash, Guild of Darksteel, Shardpunk: Verminfall, HROT and Out Of Line all look pretty cool - so definitely check out the full demo listings.
So: the sales. Tomb Raider, from Legend to Anniversary, Underworld and GOTY are on sale for 80 to 90% off, making them cheap pickups indeed. Legend (very positive) and Anniversary both hold very positive ratings on Steam, while I'd give Underworld a miss. GOTY is the first entry in the recent remake trilogy with all the single-player conten, and definitely worth playing. It holds up pretty well for a 2013 release and sets the stage nicely for the stronger remainder of the trilogy in Rise of the Tomb Raider and Shadow of the Tomb Raider (the latter of which is probably my favourite TR game of all time, as I'm a philistine).
Other games worth considering are the twisty and aerial Bioshock: Infinite (75% off), buggy but enthralling Cyberpunk 2077 (33% off) and the incredibly charming landscape tiler Dorfromantik (10% off). The dieselpunk strategy weirdness of Iron Harvest (70% off) is also a bit of a Marmite title that could well be your cup of tea (to torture the metaphor). Metro Exodus Enhanced Edition (60% off) and The Witcher 3 GOTY (80% off) are more predictably excellent fare, with the former offering an incredible graphical showcase to anyone with an RTX graphics card - on top of a very enthralling survival shooter with a compelling story.
The QuakeCon sale we highlighted last week is also still going on, offering up to 85% off on games from the (giant) ZeniMax library. That includes the old (and new) Fallout titles, Dishonored 1 and 2, Doom Eternal, Prey, Quake, the good Wolfenstein games and various entries from The Elder Scrolls.
Quake 2 RTX is also being offered for free on the platform, although it's not clear how this is any different from the (also free) Steam release. Perhaps more relevant is that the original Quake 2: Quad Damage release is down to £2.49, which gives you a convenient way of playing the whole game in RTX mode rather than just the three level demo distributed with Q2RTX.
In any case, with hundreds of games on sale there are sure to be highlights I've missed. What are your favourites? Share them in the comments that we all may benefit from your wisdom!