From now until November 18, Steam is hosting a Cooking Fest to highlight the very best of cooking games. If you're as hopeless in the kitchen as I am, this is a great opportunity to spice up your library and pretend to be a capable chef. Everything from first-person chef simulators and in-depth restaurant management sims to emotional stories about heritage and cooking are up for grabs. So there's plenty of variety to season your palette.
One of my favourite narrative-driven cooking games Venba is currently tagged with a 50% discount, meaning you can enjoy what I would call one of the most visually and audibly appealing cooking games for only £6.39/$7.49. Or, if you want something more casual, the dinosaur pizzeria simulator Manitas Kitchen is also half price, costing a mere £5.49/$6.49. What's not to love about dinosaurs and pizza? It's a match made in heaven for me, so I recommend picking it up for cheaper while you can.
But if you want to force your friends to take part in the fest as well, and probably create an experience akin to the stress of watching The Bear, both Plate Up! and Overcooked 2 are available with a discount. Plate Up! is available with a generous 66% off (£5.69 /$6.79), but Overcooked 2 takes the cake with a whopping 75% discount (£4.99 /$6.24) letting you experience pure stress and frustration for pocket change. I guess this discount is a reasonable compensation for the friendships you'll lose along the way, but hey ho it's worth it.
For a more chilled local co-op session, I'd also thoroughly recommend Pizza Possum, which strays from the hands-on kitchen simulator in favour of an equal parts cute and chaotic arcade game that tasks you with stealing snacks without being caught by patrolling pooches. I adore this game, mostly because its possum and raccoon protagonists are utterly adorable, so for £3.47/$4.19 it's impossible not to recommend.
It's not just about discounts, either. The Free Demos and Upcoming tabs also offer a chance to bulk out your wishlist with anticipated cooking and food-adjacent games releasing in the future. I'd recommend Call of Boba, which I've been keeping an eye on for a while now. It seems much more comforting than forcing yourself through the hell of another Overcooked round, which is probably a lot more attractive.
Outside of a mass of discounted games and demos, Cooking Fest is also offering a few free point shop items to redeem. You'll be able to get an animated avatar, an avatar frame, and an animated sticker as part of the festival without having to use any points or own any games, so it's worth redeeming them as soon as possible.
