No Steam Black Friday sale in 2026, so here is your November plan

If you have been saving your wishlist for a big Steam Black Friday sale, adjust the plan now. Valve is not running a storewide sale in Black Friday week this year. Black Friday falls on 27 November 2026, and Steam's autumn sale already ran from 1 to 8 October.

Some games will still be discounted. They will just be harder to spot, and a few deals are worth catching before the Winter Sale starts on 17 December. Here is how the next seven weeks look and how to decide when to buy.

What changed on Steam's calendar

For years, the Steam Autumn Sale was a Thanksgiving-week event. It ran 21–28 November in 2023 and 27 November to 4 December in 2024. In 2025 Valve moved it to 29 September – 6 October and ran a separate Black Friday event from 24 November to 1 December, according to Steam Page Analyzer. This year the Autumn Sale moved to 1–8 October.

Valve's November plans are thin. Its second-half calendar, quoted by GameWatcher, says: "We plan to highlight games doing Black Friday discounts by directing traffic to the Special Offers hub. Specific dates and details to come."

So there will be no sitewide sale with a banner and a countdown. Individual publishers can still cut prices that week, and Valve says it will point shoppers toward those deals. Sites such as Playze and thegameextras also list no storewide Steam sale for Black Friday week.

The next seven weeks at a glance

• Now to 2 November: Scream V Fest, Steam's Halloween event, is still running.
• From 3 November: a busy run of new PC releases begins (more below).
• 16–23 November: Auto-Battler RPG Fest, a genre event rather than a storewide sale.
• Black Friday week (27 November): no storewide Steam sale. Expect publisher-run discounts and a Special Offers push, with dates not yet announced.
• 17 December – 4 January: the Steam Winter Sale (SteamDB).

What happened last year

2025 was the first Black Friday without a Steam seasonal sale. Playze tracked 734 popular paid games on official stores selling to the US, using price history from IsThereAnyDeal. Its analysis found:

• 42% of those games were discounted on Steam during Black Friday week anyway, through publisher-run sales, with a median cut of 67%. In 2024, when the Autumn Sale overlapped Black Friday, the figure was 90%.
• 66% were cheaper at another official store than on Steam that week.
• Comparing the best official Black Friday price with Steam's Winter Sale price three weeks later, Black Friday was cheaper for 47% of games and the Winter Sale for 32%. The remaining 21% were the same.

This is one site's US data from one year, so treat it as a pattern rather than a forecast. Still, the lesson is useful. Waiting for December is not automatically the smart move, and buying in November is not automatically a mistake.

Buy now or wait: a simple test

Playze's rule of thumb is straightforward, and it matches how most seasoned deal hunters think:

• If a game is at or near its lowest recorded price during Black Friday week, buy it. A historical low is rarely beaten by much a few weeks later.
• If it is not, wait for 17 December. The Winter Sale is long, so you will have time to compare prices.
• Set price alerts instead of refreshing store pages. Steam emails you when a wishlisted game goes on sale. Price trackers can tell you whether a discount is actually a low.
• Check more than one official store. Key stores run their own Black Friday sales on their own schedules. You can compare official key prices at Discover Games alongside Steam during November.

Also remember that Steam discounts are opt-in. Publishers decide whether to join a sale and how deep to go. No game is guaranteed a cut in either window.

November releases to wishlist now

November is crowded with new PC games. Most new releases will not see deep cuts this soon, so wishlisting is the low-effort move. According to PC Gamer and GameSpot, highlights include:

• 3 November: Loftia (early access), Godzilla: Destroy All Monsters Melee Remastered
• 4 November: Theos: Cities of Myth, and World of Warcraft: Forever, which is included with existing WoW subscriptions
• 5 November: Wielders of the Essence, Where the Seeds Fall
• 9 November: Casualties: Unknown, and DREADMOOR in early access
• 10 November: Warhammer Survivors (Auroch working with the Vampire Survivors team), Football Manager 27, Shrek 2 Remastered, Ashes of the Singularity 2
• 11 November: Wall World Strategy
• 12 November: 9 Kings leaves early access, plus Sonic Pico Park, Noble Fates and Hazard Level
• 25 November: Athelan Battlegrounds

DREADMOOR and Football Manager 27 are among the most-wishlisted games on Steam's upcoming page. If you were wondering about GTA 6, it launches on 19 November on consoles only, with no PC date announced.

Two Steam rules affect when these games can be discounted. A launch discount, if the publisher offers one, runs 10–40% and lasts 7 to 14 days from release. To join a seasonal sale, a game must have been out at least 30 days before the sale starts. A game released on or before about 17 November could therefore be eligible for the Winter Sale, while late-month releases such as Athelan Battlegrounds would not meet that cutoff. Eligibility is not a promise, though. Whether a game is discounted is still up to its publisher.

Your plan for the season

1. Finish any Scream V Fest purchases before it ends on 2 November.
2. Wishlist the November releases you care about, and decide whether a launch discount is worth grabbing or whether you can wait.
3. Set price alerts for your top five or so backlog targets now, so you know their historical lows before Black Friday.
4. In Black Friday week, check Steam's Special Offers hub and other official stores. Buy anything at or near its lowest recorded price.
5. Leave everything else for 17 December, when the Winter Sale gives you two and a half weeks to compare.