Valve has officially unveiled its entire roadmap for 2026, making available to PC gamers the specific dates of each major seasonal sale and themed “Fest” event in the upcoming year. This prescriptive openness has become a key pillar in Valve’s transparency strategy to move away from the old days of “surprise” leaks and help both developers and consumers budget and plan the release windows well in advance.
The schedule revolves around the four traditional seasons giants that still remain the major focus for the Steam community. The year will open with the Spring Sale in mid-March, followed by the mammoth Summer Sale in late June, and just before it stretches into the year-end, the Autumn Sale will take place in late November-scaled perfectly with Black Friday frenzy, before the year ends with the Winter Sale in late December. These are the events that historically had Valve cast its widest net discounts over major AAA titles and indie darlings.
In addition to these seasonal staples, 2026 has many specialized “Fest” events and Next Fests on the calendar. These small, genre-specific celebrations are two-pronged: highlighting niche categories such as Deckbuilders, RPGs, or VR titles while creating a flurry of free demos and developer livestreams. For many, Steam Next Fests remain the best feature of mid-summer slow, offering a hands-on taste of the industry’s brightest projects yet to hit stores.
For a veteran PC user, this degree of reliability indicates a welcome change from those last wild storefronts a decade ago. The drama of the “flash sale” has disappeared, supplanted by static discounts for the entire length of the event, but knowing today’s 2026 roadmap assures that no one is taken by surprise by a site-wide deal just a few days after they paid full price. The public announcement reveals the specific day-by-day breakdown of these events.
