Happy weekend, and welcome back to another Dealmaster. Our latest roundup of the best tech deals we can find is headed up by a range of deals on digital Nintendo Switch games. The Mario maker is running a sweeping “New Year Sale” over at its online eShop, with many of the more notable discounts duplicated at third-party retailers such as Amazon, Target, Best Buy, Walmart, and Humble. While the sales don’t include price cuts on some of the most popular Switch games—there’s nothing for Zelda, Smash Bros., Animal Crossing, or Mario Kart here—the discounts still cover a variety of games we like and have previously recommended here at Ars.
We’ve curated a list of standout deals from the sale below, but among the particular highlights, the delightfully mischievous Untitled Goose Game is down to $10, while the Switch port of the breezy and charming puzzler Captain Toad: Treasure Tracker is down to $28. Clubhouse Games, which collects 51 innocently fun mini-games that span various methods of play, is also on sale for $28. Several ports of easy recommendations are discounted as well, including near-universally acclaimed RPGs in Disco Elysium, The Witcher 3, and Divinity: Original Sin 2, the gorgeous Tetris Effect, and the chaotic first-person shooter Doom Eternal. Plus, there are a handful of deals on smaller-scale indies we’ve highlighted in past guides, including the moody action-adventure game Olija, the comedic and genre-shifting side-scroller The Messenger, and the satisfying roguelite Dead Cells.
Now, many of the multi-platform games on sale here can often be had for less on other devices, and Nintendo still charges a bit more than we’d like for years-old first party games in particular. (Games like Donkey Kong Country: Tropical Freeze and Super Mario Maker 2 would ideally be available for $40 by default these days, not just when they’re on sale.) Nevertheless, if you’re willing to pay the usual Nintendo premium for the Switch’s portability, all of the deals we’ve curated are well below their typical street prices, and the majority of them are either at the lowest price we’ve tracked for the Switch or at least very close.