Best Steam Games Under $20

There are over 50,000 games available to play on the Steam platform, but they’re not all created equal. Just over 10,000 games are marked as “multiplayer.” And of those games, there are all sorts of different genres and prices to go along with them.

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Players looking for free-to-play co-op fun should try the following fantastic games found on Steam.

It’d take an eternity to sift through the massive library and find several games that check all the important boxes:

• The game is cheap, and specifically, $20 or cheaper.
• The game is fun, and not in the “fun for one hour” way.
• The game is replayable, meaning anyone who buys it will get their money’s worth.
• Finally, no free games.

That said, what are some of the best Steam games under $20?

Updated January 9, 2024, by Mark Sammut: Steam’s library has something for just about everyone, and that extends to price tags. While hardly lacking in full-priced AAA projects, the platform has even more cheaper options, including plenty of indie gems that are just as good as any $59.99 releases.

Dave The Diver

$19.99

After a successful spell in early access, Dave the Diver launched to near-universal praise, cementing itself as one of 2023’s standout indie releases. Mintrocket’s project casts players as the eponymous Dave as he tries to run a restaurant while also collecting the fish they will be selling at their counter.

Consequently, players spend their days exploring a unique and ever-morphing sea in search of underwater specimens, a process that requires smart preparation and intelligent execution. At night, players must run the restaurants, which transforms the game into something of a management sim. Dave the Diver is impressively ambitious for an indie project, and it manages to balance a few ideas and genres incredibly well. The visuals are also charming, as are the characters.

Lethal Company

$9.99

A surprising hit launching toward the end of 2023, Lethal Company is currently in early access, where it has garnered a lot of attention and praise. A co-op experience, players must explore moons to acquire materials for a company, with the goal being to acquire enough cash to access even harder stages. Naturally, the astronauts are not alone, nor are they particularly well-equipped to handle the terrifying menaces that roam these moons.

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It’s hard to relax while exploring one of the many moons in Lethal Company when these terrifying creatures could appear around any corner.

Lethal Company is just a fun and intense game to play with friends, and it does emphasize strategy to an extent. The gameplay loop follows the formula of extraction shooters, albeit without the “shooter” part since the focus is far more on exploration and horror. While still early days, this project’s future is very bright.

Valheim

$19.99

Think Minecraft, but in third-person, and set in a Viking world. Valheim is a beautiful adventure game that has room for up to 10 players to play together. The mission? Explore the large open world, get sick gear, and fight unique bosses.

It’s a great game to play while chatting with friends on Discord. Space out while creating legendary Viking houses and drinking halls. Enjoy the casual fun while it lasts, because inevitably one player in the friend group will grind harder than everyone else to get overpowered gear. Valheim is cheap at $20 and has plenty of replayability. It’s also a fairly small (in download size) game compared to similar projects, so it’s easy and quick to install and play.

Depth

$19.99

Depth plays on the usual human experience of being terrified of the deep ocean. Think Jaws, or literally any other movie about sharks.

Play as a diver trying to find sunken treasure, or as a shark trying to kill literally every human under the sea. Divers have access to all sorts of underwater weapons to protect themselves. And the shark player can pick from a multitude of different shark species to get an edge. Humans are kind of shaped like nails when thinking about it. Better pull out the hammerhead shark!

Ultimate Chicken Horse

$14.99

Ultimate Chicken Horse has hilarious and simple graphics and an even simpler goal: get to the end of the level by any means necessary.

There are several rounds, giving all players multiple chances to get from point A to point B. Every time they do, they’re awarded points. The player to reach the point total first, wins. But it’s not that easy. There are obstacles built into each map. And every player gets to pick from a shared pool of obstacles to place on the map in between rounds. Any obstacle placed affects all players, even the one that placed it! Every player can make the map hell for their opponents or for themselves by accident.

Speedrunners

$14.99

Like platforming games? Weird outfits? What about competing with friends? Speedrunners mashes all of these concepts together and churns out a fun racing game where players use grappling hooks to propel themselves around a course.

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Indie platformers capture that classic platforming charm that takes players back to the genre’s glory days while adding new twists to the formula.

As the race progresses and players get eliminated, the screen’s borders close in. If any player touches the borders they die! Games are quick and chaotic. As players run around the course, they can pick up weapons to shoot at their opponents to make them stumble and fall to their doom.

Screencheat

$14.99

When gamers used to play split-screen Halo against their friends back in the day, everyone screen-cheated. It’s when a player looks at another player’s part of the screen to see where they are or gain other information. It was considered a “cheap” tactic because it wouldn’t be possible to do that if players were playing together online.

In Screencheat, that’s absolutely the case. In the game, everyone is invisible. The only way you can actually see where players are is to look at their portion of the screen! This makes for a ridiculous experience, that’s only amplified by the wacky weapons available to use. Throw a stuffed animal full of explosives, or shoot plasma balls from a car engine. Whatever weapon a player chooses, they’re going to have to screen-cheat to use it!

Friends Vs Friends

$9.99

Friends vs Friends is a stylish first-person shooter dueling game with a twist. Players can match up against another solo player, or have a 2v2 duel. There are a series of rounds, and whoever wins the most rounds wins the game. But before each round, each player is dealt a hand of cards.

Each card impacts the round in some way. The card could upgrade a weapon from a pistol into an AK-47, or something else that’s much better. The card could make the player move faster, or make their opponent’s head bigger, so headshots are easier to land. Once players have picked a card, they’re let loose on each other.

Left 4 Dead

$9.99

Left 4 Dead may be an older game, released way back in 2008, but it stands to the test of time. Its unique formula of creative weapons, special infected monsters, level design, and difficulty options keep it fresh and challenging for all types of players.

And if players ever get bored with the traditional co-op campaign, they can try their hand at the vs. mode. This opens the door for players to take control of the zombies in the game, and try to eliminate the human survivors. The survivors must work together and make it out alive. But if a survivor dies along the way, don’t worry. They’ll come back to life in a random closet.

Lunch Lady

$4.99

In Lunch Lady, a group of kids have broken into their high school to try and steal answers for the upcoming finals. There are 10 pages of answers to find, and they’re scattered around the high school. Straightforward, right? Well, no. It’s nighttime and it’s incredibly dark. Players have to use their flashlights to navigate their surroundings.

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Oh, and there’s a crazy lunch lady hell-bent on killing anyone she finds. Lunch Lady is a fun, but horrifying game to play. The closer the players get to completing the goal, the faster and more dangerous the lunch lady becomes. She’ll react to any sounds a player makes while moving, and anything they may say. The game has localized audio, so players need to be careful about when they talk, and for how long. Because if another player can hear them, that means the lunch lady can too. Expect to laugh, scream, and of course, run!

Among Us

$4.99

Among Us surged in popularity a few years ago, but there has never been a better time to play the game thanks to somewhat recent updates.

For those unaware, Among Us is a game about lying and deception. Eight players are thrust into a map together: six of them are crewmates, and two of them are impostors *queue infamous among us noise*. The crewmates have to run around the map and complete their individual tasks before the impostors kill them all. Since the game’s initial explosion in popularity, there have been several updates. There are now loads of new customization options to choose from, and a couple of different ways to play the game. There are also microtransactions now, giving players a way to pay to support the game while earning cool customization options.

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