Happy Christmas from Hit Reload

Hello! Happy Christmas to those of you who celebrate. I was brought up as a Jehovah's Witness—it didn't stick— and have no real family ties so I feel like I can embrace the Christmas I always wanted, which is eating, playing video games and buying myself ridiculous things under the guise of "well it's Christmas, isn't it."

This works great for me, and as you read this I'll either be playing Civilization 6 with my former housemate as we eat a variety of beige foods, or sleeping because I stayed up too late playing Civilization. However you choose to celebrate the end of the year, and honestly Japan seems to have the right idea, I hope you enjoy it.

Something different today - most people are going to be doing Christmas and not reading the newsletter, but I know firsthand that hanging out by yourself on Christmas can be dull as a lot of the Western world shuts down, so here are a few shooters worth picking up cheap in the Steam sale. I would also like to take a moment to give thanks to the exceptional Andy Brown for editing basically all of these newsletters over the last year, and to the readers who have gotten in touch: my favourite part of putting the newsletter out has been the responses and conversations with subscribers. We're nearly at 100 subscribers, thanks for making this all possible (and here's a link if you want to recommend Hit Reload to friends) 

If you've enjoyed what you've read from Hit Reload this year, Here's a discount code to give you a year's membership for $25 rather than $30 for the rest of the week. It's all optional, but if you like my musings on shooters it's a true Christmas gift. See you next week, bye! 

Best shooters in the Steam sale

• Deus Ex: Game of the Year edition - £0.83: most Deus Ex games are worth playing, but with the Randomiser mod, this one is still the best. For less than a quid, it's a no-brainer.
• Metro Saga collection - £6.21: several of the best first-person shooters of the last decade and a bit for less than £7 is a steal. Exodus is probably the best one to play if you're only going to play one, but they've all got some interesting ideas. If you've fallen for Stalker 2 recently, Metro comes from the same set of ideals.  
• Ready or Not - £22.49 - 50% off of one of the most tense co-op shooters and, despite its awful politics, one of my favourite games of last year is a steal. Ready or Not is a spiritual successor to the SWAT series that derives its tension not from firefights but in asking you to think closely about whether you should pull the trigger. 
• Battlefield 2042 - £3.99: a solid price for a shooter that found its way after a somewhat dire launch. There's a wedge of content here, but ultimately it's a great price for multiplayer hijinks with a high production value, and a good way to whet your appetite for the next Battlefield, which should be coming later in 2025. 
• Cruelty Squad - £5.26: Cruelty Squad is Deus Ex by way of David Cronenberg, a hellish body horror immersive sim that I gave 5 stars at NME way back when. I stand by it, it's a hell of a game and includes a body mod that lets you shoot crap out of your feet to propel yourself into the sky. 
• DOOM Eternal - £8.74: Yes. 

Freebies

• Straftat: If not heard me banging on about this 1v1 arena shooter yet, here I am again. 
• Marvel Rivals: I was wrong about this one, I guess. Marvel Rivals is looking like one of the biggest shooters of the year, so I'd give it a go while the going is good. I've had a fair bit of fun with Captain America, and as the game is still settling in, you can play now before the meta stabilises. 
• The Finals: I have no idea why Embark's debut isn't the biggest game in the world. It's big, bombastic fun with some best-in-class destruction. It's tightly paced and very competitive, so a lot less relaxed, but damn is it fun. The cosmetics are slightly less egregious than many other F2P shooters too, despite the fact the first season let me dress up as both a ballet dancer and an Elvis impersonator.