Sun? Beaches? Rooftop parties? Pish-posh! It's time to hide with your favorite acronyms—WASD, AC, 4K—as a discount-minded, summer-vacationing PC gamer. The annual Steam Summer Sale has returned just in time to keep you occupied and indoors.

After watching the sale kick off Thursday morning and seeing Steam's servers edge perilously toward utter meltdown, we at Ars have gotten just enough time to pick through the enormous list of games on sale (thousands already) and find guaranteed joy among the discounts. This list is, of course, just a hint at how many games are deeply discounted until July 5, and since there are no limited-time or "flash" deals this year, you have time to peruse, pick, and save. But if you can't help yourself, get started with these no-brainer Ars recommendations.

Watch the video explainer above with more on my choices below. Those games, and a few others, can be accessed via these store links. (I could've made this list five times larger, honestly, but I wanted to focus on games that rarely see major discounts.)

Bigger names

Indies, indies, indies