For many of us, Christmas and video games are inseparable. That link may not have existed when the Roman celebrations of Saturnalia and Sol Invictus gradually absorbed Christian feeling, but after years of finding consoles beneath the tree and enjoying blissful stretches of annual leave, late December has become synonymous with settling in to save the world with a controller in hand.
Sadly, gaming has not escaped the alarming price rises that have crept into every corner of our bank statements. So, instead of taking out a second mortgage to pay for your hobby, we have combed the digital storefronts for especially tempting offers that let you buy more for less.
PlayStation Store Christmas video game deals
DiRT Rally 2.0: £12.49
No hard feelings, DiRT Rally 2 - we still adore you, even if Assetto Corsa Rally’s more punishing approach to driving on loose surfaces currently has our attention. At this deeply reduced price, you get one of the finest rally games ever made, along with a festive break full of hairpins and Scandi flicks. That sounds like an excellent bargain to us.
Assassin’s Creed Valhalla Deluxe Edition: £11.39
Considering the brain-boggling scale of modern AssCreed games, this likely amounts to roughly three pence for every hour of entertainment. Valhalla refits the series formula for the Viking era and drops you into an open-world England so enormous and detailed it might give you a nosebleed.
Spyro Reignited Trilogy: £12.24
Your tweenage cousin may deduct some cool points if they catch you rescuing dragons rather than twerking in Fortnite. Still, the pain of adolescent judgement fades quickly, and you will be too absorbed in a haze of PS1 nostalgia and bright primary colours to care much anyway.
Horizon: Zero Dawn Complete Edition: £17.24
Civilisation grew rather overconfident in Horizon’s alternate universe, eventually being thrown back into a pseudo-Stone Age where once-advanced technology survives only as poorly understood relics. Your task is to roam about, firing arrows at techno-dinosaurs and uncovering those relics. There is, admittedly, more to the story - and with the expansion included in this discounted Complete Edition, now is an ideal moment to get up to speed.
Bloodborne Game of the Year Edition: £14.99
The year referenced is, admittedly, 2015 - a whole decade ago now. Even so, plenty of Soulslike devotees still cite Bloodborne as the greatest game Dark Souls studio FromSoftware has produced. Do not agree? Play it regardless. It is fifteen quid.
Xbox Store Christmas video game deals
Battlefield 6: £48.99
We have not overdosed on Fortnum & Mason chutney and become so decadent that £49 for a game strikes us as cheap. Battlefield 6 is simply a very recent, highly impressive, explosion-filled release which normally costs - you may wish to sit down - £70. You are unlikely to see it cheaper for a while.
Arc Raiders: £24.79
It is not exactly pocket change, but Arc Raiders is the extraction shooter everyone is talking about in 2025, making a 20 per cent discount worth noting. Join friends, enter a hostile area to loot its treasures and fight AI foes, then escape with your haul before another player team tracks you down and steals it.
F1 25: £34.99
You may be spotting the pattern: Xbox Store reductions are not enormous. Nevertheless, £35 seems fair for the opportunity to recreate Lando’s heroics in a deep, RPG-like career mode and experience how ground-effect-era machinery drives.
Clair Obscur: Expedition 33: £33.39
This is the game that swept up at this year’s Game Awards, and it could be installed on your hard drive for... a little less than usual. A western RPG proudly wearing its JRPG influences and built around a surprisingly compelling story involving a painting, Clair Obscur is among the best recent games to launch without a huge franchise attached to its premise.
Steam Store Christmas video game deals
The Crew Motorfest: £11.99
This arcade racer never appears to run out of fresh ideas. Travel to Hawaii, build an absurdly vast car collection, then compete in chaotic 28-player Grand Race events where vehicle classes shift mid-race. You could be sliding an RX-8 around a hairpin one moment, then blasting down a six-lane motorway in a hypercar the next. Heaven.
Rise of the Tomb Raider: £2.49
To mark the announcement of Lara’s forthcoming new adventure and another remake of the original 1996 game, the entire Tomb Raider series is currently heavily reduced on Steam. Our favourite is 2016’s Rise of the Tomb Raider, a polished triple-A interpretation of classic adventuring for the cost of a disappointing supermarket coffee.
Kingdom Come Deliverance II: £24.99
We have never visited medieval Bohemia, so cannot say with certainty whether Kingdom Come Deliverance II’s version is perfectly accurate. But we will say this: we would be surprised if it were not. This XL-sized RPG offers huge pleasures, from Henry and Sir Hans’s unexpectedly comic double act at the story’s centre to the remarkable historical detail found in every corner of every room throughout its enormous open world.
Red Dead Redemption II Ultimate Edition: £19.99
The fully loaded version of Rockstar’s Wild West compendium remains as replayable and full of violent wonder as ever. Better still, Red Dead Online is still thriving, so if you want to gather friends for a multiplayer posse, you will not need to pitch the idea like Jordan Belfort as you might at its usual £100 price.
Still Wakes the Deep & SOMA: £6.98
This bundle combines two unusually strong, story-led horror games set around water. Still Wakes the Deep makes an oil rig off Scotland’s north coast the most terrifying and beautiful location you have visited, while SOMA asks unsettling questions about consciousness and mortality. Ideal alongside a mince pie and a glass of eggnog.
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