I’ve spent many years as a completely broke starving student, and many christmas seasons trying to save my pennies to buy useless plastic imported junk from China for all my family and work colleagues so they can throw them in landfill. And so I thought I’d compile a list of the best 100% free games. Not sure if f2p games fit on this list, although I put Path of Exile on the list since I’m satisfied you can play it for hundreds of hours without spending a dime and without your experience being limited whatsoever by the lack of payments.
Anyone who can think of other exceptionally awesome free games, would be cool to list them here for others to discover.
I particularly enjoy Hearthstone as a free game. You can spend money if you want but don’t have to. If you play a lot and do quests and tavern brawls then free rolling is fine.
Recently I got into Adventure Capitalist. It’s a stupid clicker game but lots of fun.
I know no one has heard of this one but if you ever pkayed Journey you probably heard of thatgamecompany and their first game, Cloud is free. I recommend it for those who want an artsy game with good music.
Dig-N-Rig (absolute masterpiece little game, hard to explain, you’re a robot miner. short and glorious, gorgeous music and presentation) Dig-N-Rig - DigiPen Game Gallery
Bernband was one of my favourite games of like 2014, it’s short and so incredible. Cryptworlds is a masterpiece of weird. Space Funeral is a really clever and dark and strange JRPG. Before Hotline Miami was a thing, I used to follow the blog and weird game jam projects of Cactusquid. His site has endless piles of amazing little games, Norrland being the masterpiece imo. From humble beginnings now he’s a big fancy dev for Devolver Digital, worth checking out his old stuff, it’s all free.
@summer.azure , yes! I’ve played PRICE and I thought it was very cool, awesome aesthetic, almost added it to my list. However I must admit I couldn’t finish it, couldn’t figure out the puzzles, too dumb for it lol. But it’s still great, might have to play again and cheat with a walkthrough.
@8BitHero I can attest to Hearthstone being a guilty pleasure of mine from time to time, and I’ve never spent a dime on it. Quite fun though admittedly I’m absolutely terrible at it.
@StefyG I heard about this, I think it came with my copy of Journey, on the same disc but I never checked it out. I’ll have to look into it.
I enjoyed this game a lot. Never actually completed, but got very close. Might have to take another stab at it.
I pretty much have to play it at least once a day. I almost feel guilty I spent so much time playing but haven’t spent anything, aside from an in game gift for someone. I think Blizzard is doing alright without my money
Another game I enjoyed was Badland for mobile.
I believe I spent a few dollars to get rid of ads but even if you don’t it wasn’t too invasive.
Yup, me too. I haven’t quite cracked it, but each time I pick it up I start fresh and see how far I can get, slowly unravelling it. I always play with my fancy headphones cuz the soundtrack is sublime. Rare for a game to have such an intense and overwhelming sense of mystery and intrigue, it’s so eerie, reminiscent of the first time I stepped upon the shores of Myst island, but with an surreal sanitised feel, like a long-abandoned temple/spacecraft of an extremely advanced alien civilisation. Was actually the first game that made me think “Ok, I was completely utterly wrong, mobile games can be excellent.”
Three tiers. First Tier: I like lots of games and can’t have enough:
I’ll second the vote on Cactus Squid. I haven’t played the one’s @torgo mentioned. But lots of his stuff is really good. If you like Vlambeer or devolver type games check it.
Another one is ArkaneKids. I’ve barely played zineth but feel it deserves more of my time.
Liberal Crime Squad. Rogulike. Potential mustplay due to its original ide and dynamic tiered gameplay.
Doom RL. Rogulike. Unlockables and incremental progression. Well made.
Dungeon Crawl by stone soup. Arguabley the best all around roguelike. I like the ‘tiles’ version.
I’ll second hearthstone. It’s a great free card game.
Card Hunter is alright.
Tetripz. Interesting Tetris clone. Very old. I play it time to time.
Cookie Clicker was alright
OpenRA (open source Red Alert, also Dune2000) The easiest way for me to play these games on modern systems
Renegade X (Havent played this)
Obra-Dinn demo
Stalker Lost Alpha a weird pirate/mod version of the three stalker games lumped together. good but not stable.
Strife at one point there was a free version of this floating around.
Hyper Gauntlet
Micom Slayer (Haven’t played this yet)
Plasma Pong (this would be really cool on a Hyperspin type setup!)
Typhoon 2001
Aside from rogues, for free stuff a really good free community is Shooters. There seems to be a a lot of japanese made SHMUPS that are free. Doujin Communities, Doujin Shooters etc. Cho Ren Sha is a pretty good one. My fav developer would be Kenta Cho’s page Cactus Squid makes some really good ones too.
Second Tier: “I’m not broke. I just like MMOS!”
Aliens Vs Predator 2000 (i got this for free somehow on GOG)
Arc Survival of the fittest (Was free. Might still be)
Anarchy Online (an original mmorpg before World of Warcraft hit the scene)
Runescape (I missed this one but toyed with it a bit its pretty cool actually)
World of Warcraft Starter Edition
FOnline Reloaded (Probably discontinued. There is usually some kind of MMO for fallout 2 at any point in time)
Counter-Strike Nexon Zombies (It’s a real sight to see)
Third Tier. Very salty soviet still playing Half-Life.
I doubt anyone has interest in curation of HL/doom mods but I have lists of such things. Here are some of the better ones (i’ve played 100+)
They Hunger (HL Single. may not be currently free)
Brutal Doom (Doom single)
Prodoomer (doom multi)
Chex Quest (doom single)
Russian Overkill (doom single)
NAZIS! (doom single)
Harmony (HL single)
Heart of evil (HL single)
Oz DM (HL multi. I miss this)
Aliens TC (doom single. the very first mod ever made according to internet legend)
