Steam's holiday sale is a once a year event, but it looks like Christmas has come early this year. While the holiday sale will no doubt still arrive sometime next month, Valve is discounting thousands of games right now for Black Friday as part of the Steam "Exploration" sale.

It's a little different than the Steam sale events we are used to. Rather than collecting cards, playing minigames and voting on deals, everything is already discounted. If you find a game on sale you want, no point in waiting. There won't be any daily deals or flash sales to speak of, just discounts on thousands of games from now until 10 a.m. Pacific, 1 p.m. Eastern time on Dec. 1.

To highlight all the games on sale would be impossible, but we would be remiss in our duty not to point out some of the great deals we've noticed so far. If you've been waiting to snag the dinosaur, survival MMO ARK: Survival Evolved, this is your best chance yet. The game that has long dominated Steam's charts is 40 percent off right now, bringing the game's price down to $17.99 from $29.99. The entirety of the Fallout franchise (aside from Fallout 4, that is) is on sale with steep discounts, as are all of Ubisoft's Tom Clancy games, including Splinter Cell, Ghost Recon and Rainbow Six titles.

The always-popular Grand Theft Auto V is 40 percent off for a price of $35.99, while The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt is also on sale for a 50 percent discount price of $29.99. Even Call of Duty: Black Ops 3, which released less than a month ago, is on sale for $49.79, a 17 percent discount.

Like we said, the number of great discounts worth mentioning are far too many to go over here, but that's what the exploration sale appears to be all about. Valve wants players to dive in and find some great games to enjoy over the Thanksgiving weekend, and with prices like these, gamers will no doubt be happy to oblige.

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