Every March, Steam’s Women’s Day Sale shines a spotlight on games created by women developers, and this year the sale is massive.
Running from 6-15 March, the event features more than 600 games with discounts of up to 90%, alongside demos for upcoming titles worth keeping an eye on.
It’s the kind of sale that’s dangerously good for your backlog. The kind where you open Steam to “just browse” and somehow emerge three hours later with five new games and a vague sense that your wallet has been quietly mugged.
To save you some time (and possibly a few rand), I’ve picked out a handful of standout titles worth diving into while the discounts last.
From eerie fishing trips and cosmic horror to quiet post-apocalyptic road trips, these are five games that absolutely deserve your attention.
Dredge
Price: R179 marked down from R449
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At first glance, Dredge looks like a peaceful fishing game. You sail between islands, catch fish, upgrade your boat, and sell your haul to the locals. Nice. Relaxing. Maybe even a little cosy. Then night falls.
Dredge slowly reveals itself as something much darker, a fishing adventure wrapped in creeping cosmic horror. As you explore the remote archipelago known as The Marrows, you’ll uncover strange relics buried beneath the sea, meet unsettling locals with unfinished stories, and discover that the ocean is hiding far more than just fish.
The core loop is simple but dangerously addictive. You head out during the day to fish and dredge up strange objects from the depths, then return to port to upgrade your trawler with better equipment that lets you travel farther and fish deeper waters.
The catch is that venturing out after dark comes with risks, as the fog begins to twist reality and the sea reveals things that definitely weren’t listed on the fishing charts.
It’s a slow-burn mystery where curiosity pulls you deeper and deeper into the abyss, and the more you uncover, the more you begin to question whether some secrets should have stayed buried.
Signalis
Price: R248 marked down from R355
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If you’ve ever wondered what classic survival horror would look like if filtered through a bleak sci-fi dystopia, Signalis has you covered. You play as Elster, a Replika technician, essentially a humanoid android, who awakens from cryosleep on a wrecked spacecraft with only fragments of memory and one clear goal: find her lost partner.
That search sends her deep into an abandoned government facility where something has gone very, very wrong. Signalis leans heavily into the DNA of old-school survival horror.
Resources are scarce, enemies are unsettling, and every hallway feels like it’s hiding something unpleasant. Inventory management matters, puzzles demand careful attention, and survival often depends on knowing when to fight and when to run.
What sets it apart is its haunting atmosphere. The world blends retro technology, brutalist architecture, and surreal dream logic into something that feels both familiar and deeply unsettling.
The story slowly unfolds through fragments, documents, memories, and strange encounters, building a narrative about identity, memory, and the terrifying things buried inside both. It’s eerie, cerebral, and deeply unsettling in the best possible way.
Caravan SandWitch
Price: R115 marked down from R230
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Not every adventure needs combat, explosions, or the constant threat of death to be compelling. Caravan SandWitch is a narrative exploration game that strips things back to something quieter and more reflective.
You arrive on the desert world of Cigalo searching for your missing sister, travelling across vast landscapes in a trusty van while piecing together the mystery of what happened to both her and the planet itself.
Instead of combat, the focus is on exploration and discovery. You’ll drive across ruined landscapes, investigate abandoned structures, and upgrade your van with tools that allow you to access new areas and uncover hidden secrets scattered across the environment.
Along the way, you’ll meet a diverse community of characters, humans, robots, and the native Reinetos, all trying to coexist on a planet reshaped by environmental collapse and past exploitation.
The result is a hopeful post-apocalyptic journey that’s less about surviving the end of the world and more about rebuilding connections within it. It’s the kind of slow, thoughtful adventure that encourages you to take your time and simply explore.
Greak: Memories of Azur
Price: R71 marked down from R359
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Greak: Memories of Azur tells the story of three siblings trying to escape a homeland under siege. Azur has been invaded by a hostile force that spreads strange creatures across the land, forcing the peaceful Courine people to abandon their homes.
You play as Greak, the youngest sibling, who must reunite with his brother Raydel and sister Adara in order to escape the invasion. What makes the game interesting is its character-swapping system.
Each sibling has their own abilities, and solving puzzles or navigating the world often requires switching between them and using their skills in combination.
The adventure unfolds across a beautifully hand-drawn world filled with forests, ruins, and hidden pathways. Along the way, you’ll battle enemies, solve environmental puzzles, and gather parts needed to repair an airship that may be the Courines’ last chance of escape.
It’s a charming platforming adventure that blends exploration, puzzle-solving, and combat with a heartfelt story about family and survival.
Pink Noise
Price: R98 marked down from R108
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If you grew up in the 90s, Pink Noise will feel like stepping straight into a VHS-soaked nightmare. This psychological horror visual novel follows a group of teenagers in a sleepy American town who stumble across a mysterious, unmarked VHS tape.
Naturally, curiosity gets the better of them. Naturally, that decision goes very badly. Watching the tape triggers a series of terrifying events as the characters’ deepest fears begin manifesting in the real world.
What follows is a branching narrative where your choices shape both the relationships between characters and their ultimate fates.
The game mixes traditional visual novel storytelling with interactive elements and mini-games, while hundreds of hand-painted frames create a cinematic look that captures the eerie nostalgia of late-90s horror.
Depending on the choices you make, the story can unfold in very different ways, and not everyone is guaranteed to survive the experience.
The Steam Women’s Day Sale is packed with hundreds of games, but these five are a great place to start if you’re looking for something memorable to add to your library.
Whether you’re dredging up cosmic horrors from the ocean floor, wandering a quiet desert world in search of family, or trying to survive a cursed VHS tape straight out of a ’90s nightmare, each of these games offers a glimpse into the creativity coming from women-led studios across the industry.
And with discounts running until 15 March, there’s never been a better excuse to dive in and discover something new.
