This Week's Best iOS Game Deals: Death Stranding, Chess Tiger Pro, and More

Prices on the App Store move fast, so we checked every deal below against the live App Store listing before publishing. As of July 18, 2026, all of these are still discounted — one AAA console port at half off, a chess engine that's been sharpening players since the 1990s, and a handful of indie games worth a dollar or two of anyone's money.

#Death Stranding Director's Cut — $19.99 (was $39.99)

This is the deal of the week. Death Stranding Director's Cut on iPhone and iPad is a genuine console port — the full Hideo Kojima game, MFi controller support, and the option to stream it to an Apple TV. Half off a $40 AAA game is rare on the App Store, where most "premium" listings top out at $10–15. If you've been waiting for a reason to try it on a phone screen instead of a couch, this is it — just budget for a modern iPhone or iPad; it's a demanding port.

#Chess Tiger Pro — $9.99 (was $14.99)

Chess Tiger has been a competition-grade engine since the desktop chess-software era, and the iOS Pro version carries that pedigree over: adjustable engine strength for players at any level, position analysis, and none of the ad interruptions or subscription paywalls that have crept into newer chess apps. At $10 it's not an impulse buy, but it's a one-time price for software that used to cost far more as a boxed product — worth it if you actually study the game rather than just play casual matches.

#Shotgun King: The Final Checkmate — $3.99 (was $6.99)

A roguelike built on top of chess rules — you play a king who's had enough of hiding behind pawns and starts blasting pieces off the board with a shotgun. It sounds like a gimmick and turns into a genuinely tight run-based strategy game once the difficulty ramps up. Good pick-up-and-play length for commutes.

#Hyper Light Drifter — $0.99 (was $4.99)

At a dollar, this is close to free. Hyper Light Drifter is a moody, near-wordless action-adventure with some of the best pixel art on the App Store and a soundtrack worth playing with headphones. Touch controls are serviceable but this is a game that's noticeably better with an MFi controller if you have one lying around.

#More deals worth a look

A few smaller titles from the same week's price drops are still live and worth a mention if the picks above aren't your genre.

Loco Looper is a physics puzzle game about looping tracks back on themselves, currently discounted to $2.99.

Dungeon Within is a dungeon-crawling roguelike with a strong pixel-art style, down to $5.99.

Bright Reappear is a minimalist puzzle-platformer that's dropped to $0.99 — one of the cheapest ways to fill a few idle minutes.

Vintage Camera – Goodak recreates old disposable-camera film stocks and light leaks for $1.99, useful if you want that look without a subscription photo filter app.

#What we skipped

Not every discounted app from this week's roundups made the cut. A handful of titles that appeared in the same source lists had already reverted to full price by the time we checked live App Store data on July 18, which is exactly the kind of stale-deal problem that makes some "best deals" posts unreliable a few days after publishing. If a game you were hoping to see here isn't listed, it's more likely we filtered it out for that reason than that we missed it — we'd rather publish six confirmed deals than twelve where half no longer apply.

#Why prices like this show up

Most App Store discounts are the developer's own call — a limited-time promotion to spike download rank, tied to an update, a seasonal sale, or just clearing out before a price increase. They're rarely announced widely and rarely last more than a week or two, which is why "best deals" roundups like this one have a shelf life. If you see something above you want, don't sit on it.

#How to catch the next round of deals yourself

App Store discounts don't get a push notification from Apple — you either stumble onto them, follow deal-tracking sites like this one, or check manually. If there's a specific paid game or app you're holding out for, the more reliable approach is checking its App Store listing every couple of weeks rather than waiting for a roundup to mention it, since even well-tracked deal sites miss discounts on lower-profile titles. Our own game charts refresh with current pricing, so a quick scan there doubles as a cheap way to spot new markdowns on games you already have your eye on.

#FAQ

Do App Store sale prices apply worldwide? Usually yes, but regional pricing means the exact discount and currency conversion can differ by country. The prices above are US App Store pricing as of July 18, 2026.

Will these prices go back up? Almost certainly, though there's no fixed schedule — some revert in days, others stay discounted for weeks. If you're not ready to buy today, keeping an eye on our game charts is a better bet than trying to time it.

Is a discounted game safe to buy — no hidden subscription? All the picks above are one-time purchases, not subscriptions — worth checking on any app's own product page before buying, since App Store listings don't always make in-app-purchase structure obvious at a glance.

Browse more current markdowns on our game deals page, updated as new discounts appear.