Another holiday season approaches and video games are once again awash in sales, discounts, and end-of-year inventory liquidations. Everywhere you click there’s another price with a red line through it and the promise of big savings. It’s overwhelming and easy to tune out, so we’ve consolidated a much shorter list of the best Black Friday 2024 deals to highlight our favorite ones.
What makes a good Black Friday gaming deal? It’s a delicate alchemy of by how much something is discounted, how often it goes on sale, and whether it’s actually worth getting whether it’s on sale or not. While not a definitive list of every wild gaming deal out there this holiday, there are plenty of solid recommendations for improving your gaming setup, catching up on some of the biggest releases of the last couple of months or years, and just generally cool stuff that’s on sale.
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I still collect physical comics from time-to-time, but there’s no beating the convenience and accessibility of digital comics on-demand. Marvel Unlimited includes the majority of the back catalog and all of the latest stuff on a three-month delay. It’s the perfect way to catch up on Jonathan Hickman’s X-Men, Matt Fraction’s Hawkeye, and Jason Aaron’s Thor, as well as other great runs from the last decade. Normally $70 a year, the current sale runs through December 15 and gets you a sub for less than the price of a single comic per month.
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2020’s good but flawed open-world sci-fi RPG became excellent in 2023 thanks to years of updates, some big gameplay overhauls, entirely new features like a metro system, and a GOTY-quality expansion called Phantom Liberty. If you still haven’t dipped your toes into CD Projekt Red’s cyber-noire thriller, there’s no better time. The Ultimate Edition includes the expansion and all the DLC and free updates preserved in a physical version. Amazon, Best Buy and other retailers are selling it this Black Friday for 50 percent off the normal $80 price.
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Memory cards aren’t exciting but they are a massive boon to quality-of-life on modern consoles. If you’re tired of playing download Jenga on your Xbox or PlayStation, Western Digital’s storage expansion cards are over $50 off. While $100 for 1TB of extra space doesn’t sound cheap, it’s the kind of improvement that pays dividends every time you turn your machine on, especially if you subscribe to massive libraries like Game Pass and PS Plus.
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Star Wars Outlaws is a great game that’s getting better every day. Its disappointing sales figures for Ubisoft earlier in the year can now benefit everyone who hasn’t yet played, as the French publisher is aggressively slashing the price of the sci-fi open-world blockbuster for Black Friday. You can pick up the physical version from several stores for $30 off the list price, and just in time to take advantage of Star Wars Outlaws’ recent Grand Theft Auto-like tweaks to its stealth gameplay.
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Some hardcore Xbox fans are going through an existential crisis over Microsoft’s recent multiplatform pivot, but its new “everything is an Xbox” marketing campaign is perfect for gamer-pilling that friend or family member in your life who hasn’t touched a controller since Pokémon Snap. For the price of a new game you get an Xbox Series X/S controller, Amazon Fire Stick for your TV, and a month of Game Pass Ultimate. You can play Indiana Jones and the Great Circle without ever touching an Xbox.
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The best game of 2022 might end up being the best game of 2024 again thanks to its excellent expansion, Shadow of the Erdtree. FromSoftware’s open-world RPG is brutal but compelling, with secrets to uncover and huge boss fights to master without any of the overbearing hold-handing found in many other modern blockbusters. Pound-for-pound one of the best games of the decade, it’s now also one of the cheapest for Black Friday. And for the connoisseur players out there, Armored Core VI: Fires of Rubicon is ultra cheap too.
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Something the Mario Kart 8 Deluxe Switch bundle and your aunt’s cheeseballs have in common is that they will appear every holiday season without fail. A fine deal on its own—the bundle includes the game for free—Walmart and other retailers are going the extra mile and knocking another $75 off the price tag of the normally $300 Switch. The deal is so good that it is already going out of stock at many places, but stores also appear to be restocking throughout the week, so keep checking back or show up in person for a shot at the biggest discount of Black Friday 2024.
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You can play The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom for a hundred hours and still feel like you’re just scratching the surface of its dense, secret-filled world. I’m still digging through it over a year later. Normally $70, it’s a good deal at $50, but an excellent one at $30. That’s what Walmart is selling it at this holiday if you can manage to get your hands on one. Again, it’s going out of stock fast, so keep checking back for updates or exclusive in-store inventory.
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Everyone’s controllers are discounted at the moment, but the DualSense is still overpriced and the Switch Joy-Cons are still junk. The Xbox Series X/S controller, on the other hand, is the best value and, in my opinion at least, the best feeling current-gen controller out there. It works on PC too, as well as with smartphones for cloud gaming. The fancier colors are each $20 off, too.
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Rise of the Rōnin didn’t quite get the look it deserved this year, but Team Ninja’s open-world action-RPG is a good, meaty game for anyone who enjoys exploring cool words and tense, parry-based sword combat. It’s perfect game for someone who only buys one or two games a year and wants something that will keep them busy well into the spring. For all of its flaws, it’s an absolute steal at just $30, which is what you can pick up the physical version for at Walmart and other places.
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You can never go wrong with The Lord of The Rings. Out of all the blockbuster epics of this century, it holds up the best, feels the most timeless, and has enough extended version footage that it always feels like there’s something new you’re seeing for the first time. The 4K ultra HD set with all of the deleted scenes and extras will probably be the definitive version of these definitive movies for all time, and if someone doesn’t already own it you literally can’t go wrong giving it to them. Normally $90, the box set is currently almost 40 percent off on Amazon.
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The latest entry in Square Enix’s long-running series and one of the best fantasy RPGs of 2023 is currently half-off. Final Fantasy XVI, for all its problems, is a game I couldn’t put down through my 45-hour journey with it. I’m now on my way to getting the platinum. It has some of the best action combat of this console generation, and a ton of unforgettable cinematic set-pieces. Think Uncharted meets Game of Thrones. And unlike Final Fantasy VII: Rebirth, you don’t need to have played dozens of hours of other games to fully appreciate what’s going on.
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The PlayStation 5 slim is normally $450. That’s $50 more than it was when the original version launched in 2020, which takes the wind out of $75 discount for Black Friday 2024. And yet, if you want the best high-end games on the best high-end gaming console, the PS5 slim is it, and it’s probably not going to be cheaper than this anytime soon. If you’re planning on finally upgrading from a PS4 or hopping in before this console generation starts drawing to a close, this is the cheapest opening to do so yet.
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