With the holidays quickly approaching, PC gamers are no doubt looking forward to the Steam Winter Sale. Some PC gaming stores have already kicked off their year-end sales, but few are quite the event that the Steam Winter Sale has turned into over the years. The big question now is, “when does the Steam Winter Sale actually begin?” While most years we have to rely on leaks or educated guesses, we thankfully have some concrete details this year.
Earlier this year, Valve itself revealed the dates for a number of its year-end sales on the Steamworks Documentation website, including the Steam Winter Sale. Thanks to that, we can pretty confidently say that the 2021 Steam Winter Sale will kick off on December 22nd, 2021. That’s tomorrow for those who may not have a calendar handy.
The sale is expected to start when the Steam Store refreshes at 10 AM PST/1 PM EST tomorrow, and it’ll run until the same time on January 5th. That gives PC gamers two weeks to sweep up any deals they may be interested in, and we’re expecting a lot of discounts to consider as this is one of two annual sales where much the Steam library is discounted.
This is the third sale in as many months for Steam, which ran short Halloween and Autumn Sales in October and November, respectively. Both were smaller in scope and shorter in duration than the Steam Winter Sale is expected to be, so even though Steam users have already had recent tastes of discounts, the Winter Sale is undoubtedly the main course.
Competitors to Steam, most notably GOG and the Epic Games Store, have already kicked off their year-end sales, getting out ahead of Steam in the process. The Epic Games Store is going particularly hard this year, offering a free game daily and a $10 coupon on every full game priced at $14.99 or higher. Steam’s sale will almost certainly be more reserved than Epic’s, though we’re still expecting plenty of deep discounts.
It’s worth keeping in mind that voting for The 2021 Steam Awards will be open during the Winter Sale. Voting kicks off tomorrow with the arrival of the Winter Sale and wraps up on January 3rd at 9 AM PST, with the winners likely announced during the final full day of the sale. Though you can’t vote just yet, you can view all of the categories and nominees over on the Steam Store and decide now which games you’ll vote for when the time comes. Otherw
