Yesterday Microsoft kicked off its annual Xbox Ultimate Game Sale, featuring discounts of up to 85 percent off MSRP on more than 250 games. To state the obvious, that’s a lot of games. So how do you find the best deals and choose which ones to jump on? Well, you could scroll through the entire list, search the Xbox Store or cycle endlessly through the mountain of deals on your Xbox.
Alternatively, you can skip all that and just keep reading right here, because we’ve singled out what we believe to be the best indie Xbox One releases on sale and listed them below. Take a look below to find the indie games you should consider picking up on sale, why you should consider picking up and what they cost on sale with and without an Xbox Live Gold (XBLG) subscription.
Action Henk
Ever wanted to race ’90s action figures across platforms in a video game? Then Action Henk may be the game for you. In the XBLA Fans review, David wrote that “Action Henk is the most fun I’ve had with a video game in a long time. The pace never slows down, the action doesn’t get stale and the gameplay gets more and more rewarding as you get better at it. In a nutshell — I loved it.”
Regular Price: $14.99
Discount Price: $7.50
ARK: Survival Evolved
ARK‘s full release was recently delayed from this past June to a nebulous holiday season window, but you can always join the legions of other players surviving its dinosaur-infested world on the Xbox Game Preview Program. In his preview last December, Matt wrote that “ARK doesn’t just bode well for the future — it’s already incredibly feature rich and well presented.” In the months since, developer Studio Wildcard has added copious amounts of new content, with plenty more in the works.
Regular Price: $34.99
Sale Price: $29.75
Sale Price with XBLG: $26.24
The Flame in the Flood
Call it a roguelike or a roguelite or even a roguelike-like, if you, uh, like (sorry). Just don’t call The Flame in the Flood a game that you missed out on playing. In her review, Christine wrote that she “found The Flame in the Flood to be totally absorbing. Despite its harsh difficulties, it’s an extremely rewarding game. I enjoyed many soothing moments sitting by the campfire drinking dandelion tea and drying off from the torrential rains from earlier. With my best pal at my side and a warm meal in my stomach, I can actually think back fondly about the boar who broke my leg, since I’m now wearing him as a hat and am filled with hope I’ll set off again down the river.”
Regular Price: $19.99
Sale Price: $15.00
Sale Price with XBLG: $13.39
Layers of Fear
We still have almost half the year to go, but Bloober Team’s Layers of Fear has already stirred some GOTY nomination chatter from a few of the XBLA Fans staffers. Not everyone was completely in love with it, though. While Nate wrote in his review that “Anyone who has ever played and loved a ‘walking-simulator’ game should play Layers of Fear.” he couched that statement by warning that gamers “looking for a little more to do than walk and marvel” might not want to so eagerly jump on this one. Still, it’s sale price makes it tough to ignore.
Regular Price: $19.99
Sale Price: $9.99
Sale Price with XBLG: $8.00
Ori and the Blind Forest: Definitive Edition
Much of the XBLA Fans staff would probably tell you that if you only buy one game off this list, it should be Ori and the Blind Forest: Definitive Edition. In an update to his review of the original game for the definitive release, Matt wrote that this re-release was “the same sublime, magnificent Metroid-inspired platform adventure that it was a year ago, and now it comes bundled with two new areas, an easier difficulty level, the ability to fast travel around the map and a couple of new moves for the titular Ori.” He did warn that “it doesn’t rectify any of the original’s flaws, such as some really annoying difficulty spikes or some minor control issues,” but ultimately said that “if you don’t already own it, then you should.”
Regular Price: $19.99
Sale Price: $15.00
Sale Price with XBLG: $13.39
Q*bert REBOOTED: The XBOX One @!#?@! Edition
Speaking of awards season, GPC Games’ Q*bert REBOOTED: The XBOX One @!#?@! Edition is clearly the front-runner for most ridiculously named Xbox re-release of 2016. This is especially so when you consider the game is basically just the same old Q*bert you may or may not remember from the practically pre-historic Atari 2600 days. But that might not be such a bad thing. David wrote in his review that “there’s probably not that much that could be done to mix things up with the Q*bert formula. The simplicity is part of the charm of this old-school classic. Still, it will be nice to see if another decade or two will bring us a new version with something more than a fresh coat of paint and costumes slapped on.”
Regular Price: $9.99
Sale Price: $6.99
Sale Price with XBLG: $6.69
State of Decay: Year-One Survival Edition
Everybody likes zombies, right? Well, maybe everybody aside from all those Walking Dead characters who’ve been killed by walkers…or all those Resident Evil characters offed by the undead…or maybe all those The Last of Us characters who fell to clickers…or perhaps — all right, well, the point is, almost everyone loves a good zombie game, so you can only imagine how much they love a great zombie game. Enter State of Decay, the zombie survival game XBLA Fans picked as the 20th best XBLA game ever. Then Undead Labs went and upped the ante with Year One Survival Edition, of which Matt said in his review would “leave all but the harshest of critics feeling as if they have been wrapped in their favourite winter blanket, freshly cleaned and renewed after a year or so on the shelf.”
Regular Price: $29.99
Sale Price: $18.00
Sale Price with XBLG: $15.00
Unravel
When it was first shown at E3 2015, Unravel looked like the next great indie puzzle-platformer and instantly garnered oodles of hype. Unfortunately, I didn’t feel like it quite lived up to those expectations and wrote in my review that while Unravel “is a thing of beauty and an original concept from a developer and a publisher long mired in franchise work. But there are far too many superior indie puzzle-platformers on the market to recommend Yarny’s occasionally enjoyable but mostly sleepy and frustrating adventure.” Still, reviews were a bit up and down on this one, and even internally at XBLA Fans the game has its fans and detractors. If you want to form your own opinion, now’s as good a time as ever to do so. (Note: Unravel will be free on EA Access starting July 12, so members are best served waiting for that promotion to begin.)
Regular Price: $19.99
Sale Price: $12.00
Sale Price with XBLG: $9.99