Humble’s new Decked Out Collection bundle features seven games that are great for Steam Deck users looking to add a little something new to their handheld’s library. If you have some trips planned for the months ahead, these are sure to keep you entertained on any long journeys.
The seven games in this bundle (which you can see in full below) have a total value of $129, but through the bundle you can get them all for as low as $12. That’s a sweet offer to jump on, though keep in mind it’s only live for 15 more days. If the selection has caught your eye, now is the time to grab it.
As mentioned before, paying as low as $12 will set you up with all of the games above. However, you can also pay just $5 for Vampire Survivors and Nidhogg 2, if you’re not looking to splash out on multiple games.
If you decide to pay a little more than the $12, your money is actually divided up between publishers, Humble, and a charity, which is American Cancer Society through this bundle. That’s a nice little bonus on top of the games, if you’re able to give a bit extra.
Outside of this bundle, there’s plenty more to check out right now on Humble Bundle. If you’re on the lookout for even more PC games to add to your library, January’s Humble Choice lineup is live. With a Humble Choice membership, which costs $14.99 per month, you can take advantage of this month’s selection which features a great variety of games, including Sonic Frontiers, Tomb Raider IV-VI Remastered, and six other titles. What better way to keep busy over the winter months, right?
Hannah Hoolihan is a freelancer who writes with the guides and commerce teams here at IGN.
Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War has been in hibernation since 2017, and its most recent installment was far from universally well-received. So when King Art Games was handed the task of bringing it back, there were a lot of tricky decisions to navigate and an eager but picky fanbase to face. We recently got to chat with Creative Director Jan Theysen and Senior Game Designer Elliott Verbiest about how the team is calling the shots. (Read on or watch the video interview below.)
It was King Art’s previous game, Iron Harvest, that seemed to catch the attention of someone at Games Workshop. And it’s not too difficult to see why, if you look at its big, stompy robots.
“So we were working on Iron Harvest, our previous game, an RTS game as well,” Theysen recalled. “And that was a Kickstarter game. So we were very open about the development and we showed a lot of stuff we can do with the engine and what we do in terms of art and so on. And as someone at Games Workshop must have seen that and they basically contacted us and asked, ‘If we were doing Dawn of War 4, what would you do, basically?’ And so we made a little pitch and we sent them over our ideas and the presentation and we didn’t really hear back from them a lot. And so we basically thought, okay, that’s it, right? It’s like, cool that they asked us, basically. And then when Iron Harvest came out and was successful, they basically came back and said, ‘Okay, let’s talk about it for real.’ But you can’t really believe it, right? Yeah, well, okay, now they’re asking us, but in reality, we’re not going to make Dawn of War 4. And then slowly but surely it becomes more realistic and you don’t really dare to believe it, right? And then at some point you sign the contract and it’s like, holy… it’s there. We’re doing it.”
For many, myself included, Dawn of War was the gateway to the whole Warhammer 40K universe. And King Art hopes this next installment might be as well. It’s a sprawling and… sometimes convoluted setting, so that’s not exactly a straightforward task.
“It’s funny because we hear that a lot, right?” Theysen agreed. “And that was also one of the big things for Dawn of War 4, that a lot of people say, ‘Okay, Dawn of War, yes, that was like the first time I really interacted with Warhammer.’ And so for us, it was very important to basically make a Dawn of War 4 that is of course for fans, but also a potential entry point for someone who’s new.
“Yeah. I think I remember basically how I felt when I played Dawn of War for the first time and it was like, okay, super cool, but also I don’t understand a lot, right? But I understood enough so the game was fun. It was not like I had to know what all the different weapons do or something like that. It was more like, okay, I can figure it out. And I think that is also the approach we take for Dawn of War 4, which is basically without any prior knowledge of Warhammer, you still need to understand what the factions are about, what the units are about. You won’t understand all the different weapons and equipment and all of that, but it’s fine, you can figure it out.”
Taking the brutal, aggressive Orks as an example, the goal with the design of the whole faction is that you should naturally be able to figure out how to play without knowing a ton about their lore or having to have it spelled out for you. But those of us who have been living part of our lives in this universe for years should still have stuff to get excited about.
“We don’t really tell the players, if you play Orks, you should have a lot of units and a lot of buildings and just have this explosive expansion,” Theysen explained. “It just kind of feels natural to play that way, right? Because buildings are cheap, units are cheap, you lose a lot, so you build a lot … We make sure that even if the people don’t know what Orks are about, they can still play them correctly, basically.”
“I think that’s actually one of the main appeals for the Warhammer 40K universe is that enormous breadth and depth of things that you can potentially learn,” Verbiest added. “It’s definitely one of the things that attracted me to it was that, okay, sure, of course there is a surface level understanding of it that you can introduce to the games, for example, through a story or a campaign that kind of gets you into that world essentially. But there’s so much more to it. And I think that that promise of, hey, there’s much more going on beneath the surface, I think is what attracts so many fans to it. And I think that’s also how you can serve both fans old and new is that you introduce a story, something to help onboard players into this world, but you have enough detail and other things within that, that signal to more established, more veteran fans of the universe, hey, we are aware of this and we speak the same language. We have the same understanding here.”
Deciding what Dawn of War 4 was going to be in context of the previous entries was a judgment call all its own.
But even within the Dawn of War envelope, there are different players bringing different expectations to the table. Dawn of War 1 was more of a traditional basecraft RTS. Dawn of War 2 put the focus more on upgrading a few elite squads, almost like an RPG. And Dawn of War 3 was… well, I try not to think about it too much. But even it had its fans, apparently. So deciding what Dawn of War 4 was going to be in context of the previous entries was a judgment call all its own.
“I mean, that was definitely one of the big questions at the beginning, right?” Theysen said. “What is a Dawn of War game, right? Because Dawn of War 1 and 2, at least everybody here at the company really loves, but they’re very different games. And you can say, okay, maybe we can make a kind of best off of both of those. But we’re not sure that that actually works. And so in the end we said, okay, we have to go with one of them. And we said ultimately, okay, let’s go a little bit back to the roots, right? Let’s do Dawn of War 1, or our version or our interpretation of Dawn of War 1. Let’s see if something from Dawn of War 2 or even 3 works with that. And if it does, sure, then let’s put it in. But Dawn of War 1 was clearly our guiding star.”
“And it’s really interesting because that also informed a lot of the gameplay and design decisions that we made as well,” Verbiest elaborated. “The real time strategy genre is also something that has very different market segments or different audiences that have very different, sometimes conflicting needs. And I think that having that clarity of vision of, we want to go for Dawn of War 1 and how people felt about that definitely also informed a lot of the choices that we made as to what kind of parts of the game are we focusing on. So that’s why we have this emphasis on the campaigns as kind of like our flagship feature, as well as having all these fantastic cinematics and CGIs that we then have then to inform that story. Because that’s something that I think a lot of people were missing from the genre for quite a while.”
And storytelling is poised to be front-and-center for Dawn of War 4. While many RTSes have led with a competitive multiplayer mindset, King Art is putting a lot of emphasis on their dynamic campaigns and the single-player experience.
“Because that is like the first big decision we made was basically, okay, if we do a Dawn of War 4, we want four factions back and not only three,” Theysen continued. “And if we have four factions, we really would like to tell a story for each of the factions, right? And then all of the four campaigns have this overarching story, basically. And for us, that just felt like a natural thing we wanted to do because we like campaigns, we know that a lot of RTS players like campaigns, and so let’s really focus on that. And then we made our lives even harder because we decided, okay, let’s maybe also have the campaigns be a little bit non-linear. So there are things like, you can pick which of the Ork bosses you want to play, for example. Or there are missions that are mutually exclusive or things that you can optionally do and so on. And so for us, it’s like this: the campaign is like the heart of the whole thing and that has to work. But of course, then also we have multiplayer and we have Last Stand and so on.”
If you’re interested to hear more about the nonlinear aspects of the Ork campaign, keep an eye out for our hands-on preview later this month. Then be sure to check out all of our other Dawn of War 4 coverage as part of IGN First, including the Ork cinematic trailer. And for everything else, keep it right here on IGN.
Games Workshop has addressed the long wait for Henry Cavill’s Warhammer 40,000 Cinematic Universe, insisting that Amazon is in control of the delivery of the adaptation.
Former Superman actor and Warhammer 40,000 lover Henry Cavill is set to star in and executive produce the live-action Warhammer 40,000 adaptation for Prime Video.
Cavill’s Warhammer 40,000 Cinematic Universe is shrouded in mystery, and Games Workshop itself has cautioned fans not to expect to see anything of it for some time. But it is now over three years since Games Workshop’s deal with Amazon was announced, and fans have yet to see anything of it, or hear anything tangible about it.
In its latest financial results (the long and short of it is that Games Workshop is doing tremendously well and making loads of money), CEO Kevin Rountree addressed the elephant in the room: just what is going on with the Amazon stuff?
“We continue to work on some exciting projects that will bring Warhammer to screens like never before,” Rountree said, keeping his cards close to his chest. “Our live action endeavour is still in development with our partners: Amazon MGM Studios, Henry Cavill and Vertigo. It is the nature of these things to take several years, and while we wish we could tie down a release the way we can with our core business, the reality is that, as with any licensing deal, delivery is not in our control. We leave it to our partners to manage their own businesses.”
That doesn’t help fans much, to be honest. But at least we know the project is still in the works and hasn’t been lost to the Warp. Fans have spent the last few years in a state of enduring excitement about the prospect of finally seeing Warhammer 40,000 brought to life in live-action form across films and TV shows — and with Cavill steering the ship, they’re confident it will be done right. Hopefully we’ll get some details, including who Cavill himself will play, soon.
However, condensing the vast scope of Warhammer 40,000 into films and TV shows while sticking to a reasonable budget may prove a challenge. Warhammer 40,000 is a highly detailed setting with multiple factions, thousands of years of war played out on a galactic scale, and, at the heart of it all, enormous Space Marines who often fight against even bigger monsters. We’re talking space battles that can last hundreds of years, gargantuan land battles that can consume entire planets, and the Warp, a place so unknowable that it can be pretty much anything you can imagine.
In June last year, Cavill himself touched on the “complexity” and “trickiness” of adapting the Warhammer 40,000 IP. But, he insisted, he’s loving the challenge, which for fans will be great to hear. Bringing Warhammer to life “is a dream come true,” Cavill said, “but it’s different from what I’ve done before, in the sense I haven’t had my hand on the tiller of things before. It’s wonderful doing that. It is a tricky IP, and a very complex IP, and that’s what I love about it. The challenges that come with putting this on the page in a way that is doing justice to that complexity, that trickiness, and that nuance, is a challenge I’m enjoying enormously.”
However, Rountree did have one solid bit of news to deliver: a standalone Warhammer Age of Sigmar episode is in the works. Age of Sigmar is the fantasy portion of the Warhammer universe, as opposed to Warhammer 40,000’s far future setting. This new episode follows on from the hugely popular Warhammer 40,000 episode for Amazon’s animated anthology series Secret Level, which starred Titus from Space Marine 2.
And it sounds like there’s more to come from a potential Secret Level Season 2. “After a successful collaboration with Amazon MGM Studios and Blur for Secret Level (a high-end animated anthology show), we are now meeting with writers to determine our next step to continue the momentum gained from that episode,” Rountree said.
“In the meantime, work is almost complete on a standalone Warhammer Age of Sigmar episode. Again, for Prime Video. We will update you further when we have more significant milestones to share.”
Wesley is Director, News at IGN. Find him on Twitter at @wyp100. You can reach Wesley at wesley_yinpoole@ign.com or confidentially at wyp100@proton.me.
Stellar Blade director and CEO of Shift Up Hyung-tae Kim has stated that without the use of AI, developers in smaller nations will struggle to keep up with studios in places like the U.S. and China.
As first reported by GameMeca, and picked up by Automaton, Kim addressed attendees at South Korea’s 2026 Economic Growth Strategy event and said that countries like China have an overwhelming advantage due to the sheer number of staff it can throw at video game development.
“We devote around 150 people to a single game, but China puts in between 1,000 to 2,000. We lack the capacity to compete, both in terms of quality and volume of content,” Kim said (via machine translation).
Vikki Blake is a reporter for IGN, as well as a critic, columnist, and consultant with 15+ years experience working with some of the world’s biggest gaming sites and publications. She’s also a Guardian, Spartan, Silent Hillian, Legend, and perpetually High Chaos. Find her at BlueSky.
A former veteran Bethesda developer has said the studio may end up with “hateful comments” even if The Elder Scrolls 6 ends up just being as good as Skyrim, which he considers to be one of the top 10 games of all time.
In an interview with Esports Insider, former Bethesda lead artist Nate Purkeypile, who worked at Bethesda Game Studios from 2007 before leaving in 2021, agreed with the assertion that the development teams behind The Elder Scrolls 6 and Fallout are in a “no-win situation” because of the expectation fans have placed upon both games.
“Yes, and that definitely factored into me leaving because Skyrim being one of the top 10 games of all-time, how do you beat that?” Purkeypile, who founded solo indie dev Just Purkey Games after leaving Bethesda, replied.
“If they do, great! And I hope it’s a great game, but even if it’s just as good as Skyrim was, you’ll still get so many people throwing out hateful comments. I’m sure there will be more death threats again. All of that stuff. It’s really unfortunate that that’s the way things have gone.”
Last year, amid increasing pressure from fans for some information on the game, Howard said The Elder Scrolls 6 wouldn’t be out for some time yet. In an interview with GQ magazine to celebrate the release of Fallout 4 Anniversary Edition, Howard said The Elder Scrolls 6 is “still a long way off,” adding: “I’m preaching patience. I don’t want fans to feel anxious.”
More recently, speaking to Game Informer, studio design director Emil Pagliarulo pointed to GTA 6’s high-profile delays as the “smartest thing they could do.”
“What do fans really want?” he asked. “Do they want a game that comes out before it should and doesn’t meet their expectations? Or do they want the turkey that is in the oven for long enough to be delicious when it finally comes out of the oven, you know? That’s what I think people are going to want. So, we’re going to take our time and as long as it needs to be great.”
Purkeypile said he assumed Bethesda announced The Elder Scrolls 6 so early because the studio was announcing Starfield at a time when it had already been so long since Skyrim came out, so “we needed to make sure people were not just pissed at us.” He continued: “it’s a very expensive way to do that, though. Those trailers are not cheap.”
Purkeypile added that Bethesda’s experience with the divisive Starfield shows it’s happy to delay games.
“I would imagine that they will take a while to deliver it because there’s so much pressure behind that title, and I think it’s been proven with Starfield that they’re finally okay, actually delaying stuff,” he said. “That was not really the case early on. On Skyrim, it was like, ‘It’s coming out on 11/11/11’ and we were like, what?! Oh boy, no pressure.
“I think there is less economic pressure to just get Elder Scrolls 6 out on a date, but there is more economic pressure to actually make sure it’s good, and I think that’s a good thing. That’s healthy so long as they’re also honest with the team about that.”
In the GQ article, Howard once again admitted that it had taken too long to get The Elder Scrolls 6 out the door, but did tease a The Elder Scrolls 4: Oblivion Remastered-style shadowdrop — without confirming anything.
“I do like to have a break between them, where it isn’t like a ‘plus one’ sequel,” Howard said of making The Elder Scrolls games again. “I think it’s also good for an audience to have a break — The Elder Scrolls has been too long, let’s be clear. But we wanted to do something new with Starfield. We needed a creative reset.” Bethesda is currently playtesting The Elder Scrolls 6, Howard revealed.
“I like to just announce stuff and release it,” Howard continued. “My perfect version — and I’m not saying this is going to happen — is that it’s going to be a while and then, one day, the game will just appear.” The Oblivion Remastered shadowdrop was “a test run,” Howard teased. “It worked out well.”
Wesley is Director, News at IGN. Find him on Twitter at @wyp100. You can reach Wesley at wesley_yinpoole@ign.com or confidentially at wyp100@proton.me.
Arc Raiders developer Embark Studios has released update 1.11.0 along with its patch notes, below. It adds the Abyss cosmetic set along with some fixes and balancing changes to the Trigger ‘Nade and Kettle.
These key nerfs to the Kettle and Trigger ‘Nade address some of the biggest complaints from Arc Raiders players in recent weeks. On the Kettle, Embark said it had reduced fire rate from 600 to 450. “The previous fire rate was only realistically reachable by players using macros, which creates an unfair dynamic that favors using third-party software,” Embark said in a post on Steam.
And on the Trigger ‘Nade, Embark admitted it had come to dominate PvP encounters, and “players favour picking it over all our other grenades.”
This nerf aims to make it less usable as a “trigger-in-air” grenade, while keeping its usefulness as a sticky bomb. Damage falloff has been rebalanced to concentrate the damage closer to the center of the explosion, and deal less damage farther away. The delay between triggering the grenade and it detonating has been increased from 0.7s to 1.5s, giving players more time to react, and making it harder to time the detonation in air.
Meanwhile, the update fixes a key card exploit that allows players to keep room keys after using them, and lighting has been lowered in some areas on Stella Montis Night Raid, making flashlights and listening more relevant.
Dev note: Reduced fire rate from 600 to 450. The previous fire rate was only realistically reachable by players using macros, which creates an unfair dynamic that favours using 3rd party software.
Trigger ‘Nade
Dev note: Trigger ‘Nade currently dominates PVP encounters, and players favour picking it over all our other grenades. This nerf aims to make it less usable as a “trigger-in-air” grenade, whilst keeping its usefulness as a sticky bomb. Damage falloff has been rebalanced to concentrate the damage closer to the center of the explosion, and deal less damage further away. The delay between triggering the grenade and it detonating, has been increased from 0.7s to 1.5s, giving players more time to react, and making it harder to time the detonation in air.
Fixed a key card exploit that allowed players to keep room keys after using them.
Lighting has been lowered in some areas on Stella Montis Night Raid making flashlights and listening more relevant.
Wesley is Director, News at IGN. Find him on Twitter at @wyp100. You can reach Wesley at wesley_yinpoole@ign.com or confidentially at wyp100@proton.me.
Capcom has announced a Resident Evil Showcase event that’s set to stream online later this week, featuring “brand new gameplay and news” for Resident Evil Requiem.
The Showcase will stream this Thursday, January 15 at 2pm Pacific, 5pm Eastern or 10pm UK time. Following that, Capcom will host a “post-show” discussion stream via its YouTube channel, suggesting there will be plenty to chew over.
What could Capcom have left to reveal about Resident Evil Requiem, with just six weeks to go until its launch on February 27? Well, despite Leon S. Kennedy’s presence now being out in the open, fans still have plenty of questions about the game to be answered — such as, is any of it open world?
Earlier this month, a teasing trailer published by Nvidia featured clips of a bustling city environment not yet seen in demos or other trailers. Featuring cars and pedestrians, the snippet looked more like an open world game than a Resident Evil title. Is this just a scripted gameplay sequence, or will there be more to explore? Fans are keen to find out.
Artwork for the Showcase predominantly features the gun also seen on Requiem’s cover, alongside what looks to be red-colored bullets. Resident Evil Requiem’s director Koshi Nakanishi has previously suggested this gun will be important — perhaps we’ll soon learn more of its signficance, and why it seems to pass from Leon to Grace during the game’s events.
Arc Raiders and its cutthroat PvP encounters have generated dozens of viral clips since launch, but some peaceful players prefer PvE to such a degree that they’ve started using the aggression-based matchmaking (ABMM) to find friendly lobbies.
The jig is up: developer Embark Studios is matching aggressive PvP players together. It’s a matchmaking tactic that has set the Arc Raiders community ablaze since the company announced its implementation earlier this month. While some of the more aggressive fans aren’t sure how they feel about being linked up with other bloodthirsty Raiders, gentler players are using ABMM to find lobbies where player-vs.-player violence is practically off-limits.
Multiple players have shared stories online about finding friendly lobbies that see Raiders cooperate with one another by evenly sharing loot after taking down a Matriarch. Some runs have even been said to result in a group dance party.
“Took down a matriarch and everyone shared the loot equally and then danced together at extract,” one player explained. “After a week of pure PvP this is like a whole new world.”
“Lately I’ve been running into nothing but friendly players,” another added. “Last night, a gentlemen just randomly gave me two blue prints. Didn’t have too, just did.
“I’ve been trying to repay that kindness forward. I’ll be the first to admit im not even good at this game, but the exploring, looting and meeting friendlies has been totally worth it for me.”
There are plenty of fans, especially in the solo queue pool, who favor a more serene Arc Raiders experience. While players do their best to use ABMM to land them in friendly lobbies, some have begun offering advice to those who would prefer to avoid PvP but can’t quite crack the code. There are even some fans discussing their hope for official support for strictly peaceful lobbies, but for those who prefer to rummage for loot in Stella Montis with a hint of paranoia, ABMM can be manipulated in the other direction, too.
Those who keep the safety on when looking for rusted gears and light bulbs with friends may have some luck balancing their lobbies with both friendly and aggressive players if they don’t exclusively stick to PvE combat. With enough trial and error, a few fans say they’ve had luck tweaking matchmaking to add just a dash of mischief.
“I enjoy both lobbies,” one Reddit user commented. “PvE for making new friends and looting properly. PvP with my mate terrorising the whole lobby and losing all the good weapons we brought [because] someone outplays us with a big smile on our faces and having a great time.”
Embark has been clear: ABMM isn’t a science. The aggression-based matchmaking tool is also likely still being tweaked as Arc Raiders rides success through its third month since launching for PC, PlayStation 5, and Xbox Series X | S October 30. Still, it’s proven to be at least somewhat useful for those looking to avoid PvP, and the tension that comes with it, as much as possible.
While players argue over whether ABMM is right for Arc Raiders, Embark seems to have made up its mind. For the Stockholm-based game developer, Arc Raiders is better off without doubling down on competitive gameplay mechanics like leaderboards, with CEO Patrick Söderlund explaining in a recent GamesBeat interview that “the game isn’t about shooting other players.”
“You can do that if you want to,” he added, “but the ethos of the game has never been to go in and shoot players. It’s a part that we use to craft tension.”
Michael Cripe is a freelance writer with IGN. He’s best known for his work at sites like The Pitch, The Escapist, and OnlySP. Be sure to give him a follow on Bluesky (@mikecripe.bsky.social) and Twitter (@MikeCripe).
Where can you play 1993 classic fps Doom? Loads of places. Cooking pots, smart photo frames, receipt printers (what), Wikipedia (what???), Alarmo, the wacky list goes on. And as of yesterday, that list includes unreleased indie sandbox Hytale, courtesy of a clever modder.
Doom running in Hytale comes courtesy of modder tr7zw (h/t Rock Paper Shotgun), who uploaded a video of Doom running “100% inside a Hytale mod, before Hytale is even released.” It is apparently fully controlled within the game of Hytale and isn’t actually very good to play in terms of controls working well. It’s a bit goofy, too, as it involves standing somewhere out in the world and then playing on what amounts to a blocky in-game monitor floating in the air in front of you. It runs at 20fps. But it is functional! That sure is Doom all right! I don’t know why you’d want to play it here when you have so many better options, many of which are on actual gaming platforms, but the purpose of the long-standing tradition of running Doom on weird systems has never been actually playing Doom in an ideal environment.
What’s really nuts about this is that Hytale isn’t even out yet: it launches in early access tomorrow. But modding platform CurseForge is already fully ready to support all the mods the community might desire, which imaginably will be quite a few given the game’s sandbox nature and similarities to Minecraft.
Hytale is showing some early signs of being a pretty big deal. According to its developers, it’s already made enough money to cover the next two years of development costs. Hypixel Studios founder Simon Collins-Laflamme is expecting over one million players on release day, and urged fans today to download the launcher now to help reduce stress tomorrow.
It’s a pretty incredible turnaround for a game that almost didn’t even get finished. Initially announced in 2018 from the developers of popular Minecraft server Hypixel, Riot Games ended up buying the studio mid-development to support the project. The game was delayed several times as its scope increased, until in June of 2025 the project was canceled and the studio closed. However, in November, Collins-Laflamme announced he had acquired the IP rights, announced that the game was back in development, and in a seemingly Herculean effort, the team has an early access version ready for tomorrow.
“It’s a damn miracle we were able to salvage Hytale,” Collins-Laflamme said in a statement last year. “It was barely playable. All basics were broken. Camera, movement, combat, crafting, building, gameloop, sounds, rendering. Everything, everything was wrong.
“It should have taken years to fix, but within weeks, we got the game into a playable, fun state. And now, instead of slowing down or celebrating a release, we have to keep pushing for years to make up for the time that was lost.
“So yes, I feel anger. And I’m turning that into focus and execution. I’m committing more money, more time, and personal sacrifice to deliver the game this vision deserves.”
Rebekah Valentine is a senior reporter for IGN. Got a story tip? Send it to rvalentine@ign.com.
Peak, a popular cooperative climbing game, costs $5. Except it actually costs $8, which is basically $5. And it’s on sale right now for just under $5, which is also $5, but if it dropped down to $3 it would actually be $2, which is basically free…
“What.”, you are probably thinking right now, but hear me out. It kinda makes sense. This goofy pricing scheme comes directly from Peak co-creator Nick Kaman in an interview with Game File, where he explains how his team came to the game’s actual sale price of $7.99. In the interview, he shares a theory about indie game pricing vibes that the team floated around as a bit of a joke that still has some truth behind it.
“We had this joke of, like, how much is a game really? In a player’s mind, what does it mean to spend five bucks? Well, that’s five bucks. But six bucks? Well, that’s still five bucks. Four bucks is also kind of five bucks. Three bucks is two bucks. And two bucks is basically free.
“So we’ve got these tiers: You know, twelve bucks… that’s ten bucks. But thirteen bucks is fifteen bucks. “And we found that eight bucks is still five bucks. It doesn’t become ten bucks. Seven ninety nine, that’s five bucks, right?
“So, eight bucks going to five bucks is the biggest differential we could find in pricing, so we found it very optimal.”
If you’re still reeling from this a bit, what Kaman is trying to say here is that a person getting ready to spend money on a game might see a price tag for $7 or $8, and psychologically not feel it’s that different from $5. But if a game is $9, it feels more expensive, closer to $10. And if a game is $2, it feels basically free to them.
There’s no exact science behind that, to be clear, but Kaman is working off his seven years of experience at Aggro Crab, and it seems to have worked out for the team. Peak launched in June 2025, and by August it had sold 10 million copies. Though its playerbase has (naturally and understandably) shrunk since launch, it’s still pulling in tens of thousands of people per day, which is a huge feat for such a small game.
Peak is currently on sale for $4.95, which is almost actually $5, and the lowest price it’s ever been offered for. It’s also significantly cheaper than basically everything AAA, as major publisher game prices in recent years have slowly crept up from $60 to $70, and now even $80, a price that definitely doesn’t feel like $5 or $10. Meanwhile, discussions in the indie game community about what to charge for a game remain ongoing, following a $20 price tag on Hollow Knight: Silksong causing some to panic about how it would impact their own prices.
Rebekah Valentine is a senior reporter for IGN. Got a story tip? Send it to rvalentine@ign.com.
