We bring you a list of the 23 best free PC games, where you will find titles of all genres. Previously we have already brought you lists of the best free FPS shooter, strategy games, role-playing games, and driving games. But in this case, we are going to try to make a single and more condensed list with the best of the best.
As you can imagine, currently the absolute domain is held by free games with micropayment systems to obtain aesthetic rewards. Simply because they have a source of income that allows them to offer the best of the best. However, we’ve also tried to throw in a couple of free and open-source games for those who don’t want to deal with payments.
Making such a small list with so many free games is difficult, and I’m sure many of you will raise your hands because we haven’t included this or that game. If this is the case, or if you know of other lesser-known games that deserve to be included, we invite you to leave us your proposals in the comments section, so that together we can make the most complete list possible.
0 AD
And we’re going to start with one of those rare and rare open-source games that may not be up to the graphical level of most of the list but gives you the full game for free and without any gimmicks. It’s pure love of art, and ‘0 AD’ is an alternative to ‘Age of Empires’ that you might like if you’re a real-time strategy lover.
In this game, you have to choose an ancient civilization and get resources and money to make it grow… while defending yourself from the enemies that will not stop attacking you. And be careful, because if you go too slow you may end up facing tanks with bows and arrows.
- Link: Official Website
Albion Online
‘Albion Online’ is a multiplayer online role-playing game, an open-world MMORPG that is set in a medieval fantasy universe. In it, you will have to explore the world while obtaining resources, manufacturing weapons, trading, and conquests. One of its biggest attractions is having an economic system that is based on the players themselves, who are the ones who make and sell the objects.
In this game, you will be able to improve and adapt your character to your style by obtaining and combining pieces of weapons and armor. There is no class system, so your freedom to evolve is complete, and you will have to explore, conquer territories and build fortresses, also having player vs player zones and wars between clans.
- Link: Official Website
Apex Legends
We start with a game of the Battle Royale genre, which is those in which a hundred players arrive on a map at the same time, and they have to face each other until only one is left standing. ‘Apex Legends’ is one of the greatest exponents of this genre, created by Respawn Entertainment, creators of sagas like ‘Titanfall’. Apex Legends is set in the same universe as Titanfall.
The title retains the great hallmarks of Respawn, such as the high speed of the action and the quality of the final result that is through the roof. In it, you will meet heroes with different abilities, and you will have to choose the one that best suits you. It has a respawn system so if you get killed you can respawn and continue playing.
- Link: Official Website
Asphalt 9
It came to the world as a mobile racing game, much like Need for Speed, that was free with some paid elements and stood out for its excellent graphics. But in the end, it is a title that ended up reaching practically all operating systems in free-to-play mode.
As often happens in these cases, its graphics can lag a bit behind compared to the big paid games in the driving genre. However, it has good enough aesthetics to be worth giving it a try.
- Link: Official Website
Battle for Wesnoth
We cannot change the industry, and the best free games are those that implement their micropayment systems. However, there are also projects like ‘Battle for Wesnoth’, an open-source strategy game that has been a must for GNU/Linux gamers since 2007, although it also has versions for macOS and Windows.
It is a classic turn-based strategy title, and it is set in a fantasy world. If you’re a fan of ‘Advance Wars or ‘Fire Emblem’, you might like it, and it has modest graphics to run on any PC. As for what it offers, there are a total of 17 single-player campaigns and dozens of maps for its multiplayer mode.
- Link: Official Website .
Brawlhalla
A fighting game that draws on classics such as Nintendo’s ‘Super Smash Bros’, but without the characters from the Big N. It is an alternative in which you enter to fight like crazy with other people on a platform, with some excellent two-dimensional graphics with cartoon aesthetics.
The game offers you around 40 different characters, and you can play online in 1v1 or 2v2 matches, and free-for-all matches with four and eight players. There will also be all kinds of local games and various game modes that will be added to prevent it from always being the same.
- Link: Official Website
Call of Duty: Warzone
The ‘Call of Duty saga is one of the oldest and most beloved in the world of video games, especially when it comes to first-person shooters. All their paid games have always been very focused on online modes, so it is not surprising that they have ended up launching this Battle Royale to try to attract us to their free-to-play universe.
Call of Duty: Warzone features matches where up to 150 players are dropped onto the maps to see who is the last standing.
- Link: Official Website
Counter-Strike: Global Offensive
From the end of the year 2000 onwards, it was impossible to be in any internet cafe and not have Counter-Strike installed. And more than 20 years later, it’s still a benchmark game in first-person shooters, not bad for a game that started as a simple Half-Life mod. You can find two versions. The paid one is Counter-Strike: Source, which costs 8.19 euros, and its free-to-play version is ‘Counter-Strike: Global Offensive’.
This free edition allows you to play free-for-all, although the players who go to the paid one are matched up with other paid players, so those of the free game stay to play with each other. Still, it’s a good way to gain some experience before you start battling the veterans of one of the games that founded eSports.
- Link: Official Website
DOTA 2
DOTA 2 is a game that belongs to the popular MOBA genre, which stands for Multiplayer Online Battle Arena. They are online games in which two sides face each other on a screen that is always the same, and the participants of each team can choose a character among the many available to design a game with their strategies.
Each side has five players, and the map is divided into three paths to connect both bases. You can imagine the mission, it is to destroy the enemy base. The hero that you have chosen will be improved during the game by killing creatures and obtaining gold coins.
- Link: Official Website
Dwarf Fortress
Of the entire list, this is possibly the most complicated and “hardcore” game, which very few people will be able to digest. Its learning curve is very intense, which means that it will be very difficult when you start, and to top it off, it has an aesthetic with graphics that are colored ASCII symbols that will make many find it too much. Just too much.
This is an open-source game that will challenge your mind by combining genres like roguelike and city-building games. Your mission is simple, you must take command of a group of dwarves, and progress by building their underground fortress while managing your resources and facing all kinds of difficulties.
- Link: Official Website
Eve Online
‘EVE Online’ is an excellent science fiction massively multiplayer role-playing and strategy game released in 2003, with a business model based on a periodic subscription. However, in November 2016 it became free, although there is still a subscription for those who want to get more rewards.
In this game, you will be able to pilot different spaceships to navigate a galaxy with more than 7,000 star systems, which are connected by jump gates. And in this great universe, it’s up to you to go exploring, collecting resources, facing other players, and ultimately, surviving while you level up and improve your equipment.
- Link: Official Website
Fallout Shelter
This is one of those games that end up blowing more than its creators imagined. It was born as a free mobile game, but it has ended up reaching all platforms, from computers to video consoles. He proposes to allow you to manage your post-apocalyptic bunker, and manage its resources and its inhabitants.
It’s one of those time-consuming games where you can spend whole days glued to it, and although it has a micropayment system, the advantages don’t mean you can advance in the game, but rather allow you to get more gifts in less time and advance faster, but That does not prevent you from enjoying it the same way without paying a euro.
- Link: Official Website
Fortnite
Having started with a Battle Royale, we cannot forget what is possibly the best and most popular game in this genre. To the classic mechanics of shooting each other everywhere on the map, Fortnite adds the mechanic of being able to build elements, something that if you do with good reflexes can help protect you in a face-to-face encounter.
Otherwise, 99 players are thrown onto an island, and only one can make it out alive. It is a free game, but it is completely devoted to trying to end up paying for aesthetic elements, something for which a lot of money is spent on licenses to be able to buy costumes of very popular characters in each season.
- Link: Official Website
Freeciv
Another open-source strategy game, and a must for lovers of ‘Civilization’, the saga on which it is based. ‘Freeciv’ has the same game system, but with slightly older graphics, although this means that it can also run without problems on older computers.
The development of the game is still perfectly active, and having the stable Freeciv 2.6.0 version, they are already preparing Freeciv 3.0, their next great evolution. In any case, if you like Civilization but you don’t want to spend money to buy it, this is your best alternative.
- Link: Official Website
Genshin Impact
‘Genshin Impact’ was one of the biggest hits of 2020, and a year later it is still fully fit. It is a free role-playing game with a graphic aesthetic strongly influenced by ‘The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild’, but with a much more anime character design, and it has always stood out for being so well finished that it doesn’t seem like it’s a free game.
As we said, it is a free game, but it contains a microtransaction system to be able to buy new characters or a battle pass to ensure a continuous flow of materials. You can play it cooperatively or alone, and it stands out for its action-packed combat system and for how beautiful it looks.
- Link: Official Website
Gwen
If you are looking for a strategic combat card game, and you like Geralt of Rivia books or The Witcher games, this is a game set in The Witcher 3 universe. It started as a minigame within the game itself. , but ended up emancipating itself as a free game with micropayments.
Its concept is the classic one, that of building a deck of cards and measuring yourself against other enemies with it. He has a payment system to buy envelopes in which you get new cards, but it is not strictly necessary to enjoy it.
- Link: Official Website
Hearthstone
Another combat and strategy card game is ‘Hearthstone’, which is one of the great heavyweights of this genre. This type of game is something very similar to the typical ‘Magic’ cards but in a virtual format. What you will have to do is manage a deck of thirty cards using one of nine different classes (Mage, Shaman, Druid, and more) that you think will have the best chance of beating your opponents.
Therefore, it is a game in which you will have to know the cards in your deck and design strategies based on them in each game. It is a free game, although it has a payment system to buy card packs to improve the deck. Therefore, despite not having to pay anything, some are spending large amounts of money to get the best decks possible.
- Link: Official Website
League of Legends
‘League of Legends’ is the most representative game of the MOBA genre, which are those games that mix action with online strategy in real-time. In this title, teams of 5 players face each other, and each of them will be able to choose between more than a hundred different characters, each with their own set of abilities.
Therefore, the first strategy is to know the details of each character and be able to squeeze them. Then, all the games take place on a single map, so knowing every corner is also part of the strategy. LoL has become one of the most representative electronic sports today, and all this starts with a free game.
- Link: Official Website
Path of Exile
‘Path of Exile’ is a free game that is very similar to the classic Diablo, an action game with an isometric view and many aesthetic and interface elements that draw from the mythical saga. It is a free game with a micropayment system, although these will not help you improve your heroes.
This game will invite you to go through its levels while you face dozens of types of enemies, all while trying to get new pieces of equipment to improve your character. You will also be able to obtain runes to modify your spells and make decisions when leveling up through its extensive skill tree.
- Link: Official Website
Starcraft II
‘Starcraft II’ is one of the best and most popular real-time strategy games ever. So much so, that it has a place in the list of the best games of this genre in history that the companions of VidaExtra created in their day. And for the game to become everlasting, it became Free-to-Play so that everyone can play it without paying anything.
The game is a real-time strategy, which means that you will have to be quick to collect resources and move forward because enemies can attack you at any time. It has a very competent AI, and you have to decide between controlling the fragile Terrans, invading with the nasty Zergs, or learning from the clever Protoss.
- Link: Official Website
Team Fortress 2
It is a first-person shooter game developed by Valve, the creator of Steam. The game offers several character classes, each with different abilities, and you will have to choose the one that best suits you and make the most of it. You also have aesthetic elements for your customization.
This game comes from a mod for Quake, to which Valve added the Half-Life graphics engine to improve it. Then, he released the second part, which became a real revolution, and to this day it continues to be one of the most-played games on Steam. It has a micropayment system for its aesthetic elements, but you can play without spending anything.
- Link: Official Website
Warframe
This is an excellent third-person online shooter that has the advantage of being free. It was released as a PC title in 2013 with great results, but due to its popularity, it has also ended up reaching consoles. This excellent free third-person shooter later ended up reaching consoles as well. All in all, it is one of the best free games you can find.
It is a game with a huge amount of content and options, the kind that makes you wonder how it can be free. In it, you will meet space ninjas who jump a lot, shoot, carry swords, and use magic. Like most games, it is a title that has a micropayment system to be able to monetize it, although the purchases are aesthetic instead of offering advantages.
- Link: Official Website
World of Tanks
It is a massively multiplayer online video game in which players face each other using tanks. Yes, it may seem like an exaggeration, but the game offers several hundred different tank models, from different nations and different historical periods. Almost all perfectly real models.
Here, on the one hand, you have to know that each tank is different, and has different characteristics, so choosing the one that best suits you or each battle is a first step. It is a free game with a micropayment system, but come on, you can spend all the hours you want without paying a single euro. It also has a very active community around it.
- Link: Official Website
Sharlene Meriel is an avid gamer with a knack for technology. He has been writing about the latest technologies for the past 5 years. His contribution in technology journalism has been noteworthy. He is also a day trader with interest in the Forex market.
