680 Ukrainian games are on sale on Steam right now — STALKER 2 and Metro up to 90% off
The fifth Ukrainian Games Festival is live on Steam through August 24 — Ukraine's Independence Day — with a record 680 games on sale, discounts reaching 90%, and 170 free demos to try before you buy. Organized by Palaye, the festival is the largest showcase of Ukrainian game development to date, spanning big-budget titles, cult strategy games, and small indie projects built under wartime conditions.
The lineup
The headliners are easy to spot. S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2: Heart of Chornobyl is discounted 40%, and the full S.T.A.L.K.E.R. trilogy goes even cheaper. The Metro series from 4A Games — Metro 2033, Last Light, and Exodus — is on sale alongside the Sherlock Holmes catalogue from Frogwares, which sees cuts of up to 90%. The classic real-time strategy Cossacks from GSC Game World also appears on the deal list.
If you've been eyeing STALKER 2 specifically, August 20 is a good date to watch: the game's first story DLC, Cost of Hope, drops that day alongside a free Update 2.0 — both arriving mid-festival.
The festival also coincides with the launch of The Sinking City 2, Frogwares' new horror game released on August 17, which has picked up strong early reviews from critics.
Why it matters beyond the discount
Palaye applies an ethical selection process to the festival: games with Russian co-development or Russian-language-only localization are excluded. That makes the Ukrainian Games Festival a deliberate cultural statement as much as a sale event. STALKER 2 sales by country data from launch showed the US accounted for 22% of copies sold — the single largest market — which puts this week's discounts in context for American players who missed it at full price.
Buying and wishlisting games during the festival directly supports studios that are still operating amid an active war. One of the 50 new announcements this year is Hollow Home, an isometric RPG depicting the war in Ukraine through a child's perspective — a sign that the conflict is increasingly shaping the creative output of Ukrainian developers.
The Ukrainian Games Festival 2026 runs on Steam through August 24. All 680 titles and demos are accessible globally with no regional restriction.
