Money Monday Aug. 4th – Deals, Steals, and Halo's Woke Funeral
Money Monday – August 4, 2026
Another week, another batch of deals, releases, and drama. I'm not here to sugar-coat – I'm here to tell you what's worth your hard-earned cash and what's a total dumpster fire.
🔥 Top Deals (Don't Sleep on These)
Xbox Summer Sale – ENDS TODAY
This is your last chance. After today these prices are gone, so quit dragging your feet.
Mass Effect Legendary Edition – $5.99 (90% off). Three of the best RPGs ever made for the price of a coffee. If you haven't played these, I don't even know what you're doing with your life. Check out PohnDip's Mass Effect review for more on why this series still holds up.
Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order – $3.99 (90% off). Four bucks. That's less than a gas station burrito and infinitely more satisfying.
Dead Space: Digital Deluxe Edition – $11.99 (85% off). The remake that actually delivered. Terrifying, gorgeous, and now dirt cheap.
Marvel's Guardians of the Galaxy – $8.99 (85% off). Slept-on single-player gem. Funny, well-written, and way better than it had any right to be.
Hell is Us – Deluxe Edition – $15.99 (80% off). Already 80% off and it hasn't even been out that long.
Cyberpunk 2077 – $17.99 (70% off). Finally the game it was supposed to be at launch. Worth every penny at this price. Read PohnDip's Cyberpunk 2077: Ultimate Edition review if you need convincing.
Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2 – $27.99 (60% off). Medieval RPG that doesn't hold your hand. Punishing and rewarding in equal measure. PohnDip reviewed the first game's Royal Edition — read PohnDip's Kingdom Come review here — and the sequel doubles down on everything that made it great.
Silent Hill 2 – $27.99 (60% off). The remake fans actually wanted. Atmospheric horror done right.
Assassin's Creed Shadows – $31.49 (55% off). Already more than half off — make of that what you will. Read my Assassin's Creed Shadows review for the full breakdown.
PlayStation Store Summer Sale (Part 2) – Ends Aug 12
Metal Gear Solid Delta: Snake Eater – $27.99 (60% off). A classic reborn. If you missed it at launch, now's the time.
Sea of Thieves – $13.99 (65% off). Fair warning though — read my Sea of Thieves review before you buy. Beautiful ocean, sinking ship.
Street Fighter 6 – 50% off. Still the king of fighters right now.
Ghost of Yōtei – 29% off. Not the deepest cut, but if you've been eyeing it, it's something.
Up to 90% off across 90+ PS5 and PS4 titles. Dig through that list — there's gold buried in there.
Nintendo eShop Summer Sale – Starts Today (Aug 4–17)
Slay the Spire – 75% off. One of the best roguelike deckbuilders ever made. No excuses at this price.
Spiritfarer – 85% off. Beautiful, emotional, and now practically free.
TUNIC – 50% off. Zelda-like with a mystery that'll have you taking real-world notes.
Dordogne – 70% off. Watercolor art style, chill vibes.
Little Nightmares 3 – $19.99 (50% off, Bandai Namco sale, ends Aug 10).
Annapurna Interactive publisher sale – up to 80% off through Aug 21. Stray, Outer Wilds, Cocoon, you name it.
Steam Sales
Steam Cyberpunk Fest – Live now through Aug 10. If it's got neon and chrome, it's probably on sale.
From Poland With Love sale – Dying Light 2 ($2.21), Cyberpunk 2077 ($11.43), Medieval Dynasty ($2.02), The Alters ($2.85). Polish devs have been killing it and these prices are insane.
Octopath Traveler II – $23.99 (60% off, two-year low on Steam, ends Aug 12).
🆓 Free with Subscriptions This Week
PS Plus Essential (Aug 4): Big Walk (day one from the Untitled Goose Game devs), Dying Light 2: Stay Human Reloaded Edition, and Signalis.
Xbox Game Pass Ultimate (Aug 4): Beast of Reincarnation (day one – Game Freak's first big non-Pokémon game, action RPG set in post-apocalyptic Japan).
🚀 New Releases This Week
FINAL FANTASY XIV Online – Aug 4 on Nintendo Switch 2. The legendary MMORPG finally hits Nintendo hardware. Free trial covers the base game and first three expansions, plus there's a one-month free subscription period for Switch 2 players at launch. You will need 117GB of space though, so clear out the junk.
Big Walk – Aug 4 on PS5 (PS Plus Essential), Switch 2, Mac, and PC. Co-op adventure from House House (Untitled Goose Game). It's about talking to your friends and exploring together. Quirky, colorful, and free if you're subbed to PS Plus.
Beast of Reincarnation – Aug 4 on Xbox Series X|S, PC, and Cloud. Game Freak's "one-person, one-dog" action RPG with a mix of real-time and turn-based combat. Day one on Game Pass Ultimate and PC Game Pass. $59.99 if you're buying outright.
The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion Remastered – Aug 11 on Nintendo Switch 2. Full graphical overhaul of the classic, comes with Shivering Isles, Knights of the Nine, and all the DLC. Physical cartridge confirmed. If you've never closed shut the jaws of Oblivion, here's your chance on the go. Read PohnDip's Oblivion review to see why this game defined open-world RPGs.
Resonance: A Plague Tale Legacy – Aug 27 on PS5, Xbox Series X|S, and PC. Prequel to the Plague Tale series following Sophia on the Minotaur's Island. Day one on Game Pass Ultimate. Early previews are calling it the best the series has ever played. Pre-orders include the Heritage Pack DLC.
💥 Fail of the Week
Halo: Campaign Evolved — Where do I even start? They took one of the most iconic shooters of all time and turned it into a woke-ass mess. Critics are jerking themselves off over it, but real fans? They're review bombing it into the ground on every platform. And honestly, they should be. You don't take a classic like Halo and inject it with agenda-driven garbage. The OG fans see right through it.
It gets worse. The game is trending on X right now because fans discovered they race- and gender-swapped a bridge officer whose face was originally a 3D scan of a real Bungie engineer. They literally erased a real person's likeness to push their agenda. And OG Halo 3 developer Niles Sankey went public this week calling out the "intentional vandalism" of the remake. When the guys who actually built the golden era of this franchise are dragging the new version on camera, that tells you everything you need to know.
I already dropped my full review on this one — go read my Halo: Campaign Evolved review — so you know exactly where I stand. Don't waste your Game Pass bandwidth on this one.
🃏 Card Game & TCG News
Magic: The Gathering – The Hobbit — Prerelease events kick off Aug 7, full set release Aug 14. This is a Universes Beyond set following up the massive Lord of the Rings crossover. Available for preorder now at your local game store, TCGplayer, and Amazon. If LOTR was any indication, this one's going to move.
Secret Lair x Commander Deck: Hatsune Miku — Drops Aug 10. Yeah, you read that right. Anime vocaloid meets Magic. Take that however you want.
Yu-Gi-Oh! Legendary Arc-V Decks — Lands Aug 7. If you're still slinging Yu-Gi-Oh cards in 2026, here's your new fix.
Naruto Card Game (Bandai) — Just debuted at Gen Con with free demo sessions. Covers all three anime series — Naruto, Shippuden, and Boruto. Full launch isn't until 2027, but the hype is building and it's positioned as a competitive TCG, not just a collectible cash grab.
🎲 Board Game & Tabletop News
Gen Con 2026 just wrapped (July 30–Aug 2) in Indianapolis. Tabletop gaming's biggest show dropped a ton of announcements. The Naruto TCG reveal was a highlight, plus the Cosmere RPG (based on Brandon Sanderson's books) announced its Plotweaver system is going open and free for anyone to design games with.
Pokémon Whoosh! — New Pokémon board game that released July 30 (Japan only for now). It's a flick-card style game where you physically toss cards to catch Pokémon. Fourth in the series.
Netflix Monopoly Competition Series — Netflix greenlit a life-sized Monopoly game show. 12 players, $2 million prize, produced by the studio behind The Traitors and Squid Game: The Challenge. Premieres 2027. Could be fire, could be cringe. We'll see.
📺 Streamer Drama
Mitch Jones went full send and recreated a real-life Deal or No Deal game show on Twitch — physical briefcases, banker offers, $500K in cash prizes, the whole production. It looked legit. Too legit, apparently, because the people behind the official show slapped him with a cease and desist. The audacity of this man is honestly impressive. Whether you think he's a genius or an idiot, you can't say it wasn't entertaining.
📱 Social Media Buzz
Chris Barrett settles his fight against Sony & Bungie — The original Marathon game director who was fired by Bungie in 2024 over misconduct allegations just settled his $200 million lawsuit. Barrett claimed Sony and Bungie deliberately destroyed his reputation by publicly insinuating sexual misconduct. Terms weren't disclosed, but Barrett said he's "very satisfied" with the outcome. His name has been added to Marathon's credits. Make of that what you will.
Wuchang: Fallen Feathers director rises from the ashes — Wild story out of China. Xia Siyuan, the original director of the Soulslike Wuchang: Fallen Feathers, was fired from studio Leenzee before Lunar New Year 2026. The remaining dev team was told to accept reassignment to outsourcing work — most refused and were let go. Some filed labor claims over unpaid wages. Leenzee effectively dissolved. Now Xia Siyuan is back with $24.5 million in fresh backing to make the sequel independently. The man got fired, watched his studio collapse, and came back with a bag. That's a revenge arc you love to see.
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