Getting into the can be an extremely rewarding experience, but it can definitely get expensive. But, you don’t have to pay top dollar for a great gaming experience, which is why we gathered up the best free Steam games 2018 has to offer. The have become infamous recently for overly aggressive monetization through microtransactions. Don’t worry, though, you won’t have to sign your soul away in an agreement made of loot boxes to enjoy these titles. The best free-to-play Steam games can all be enjoyed for hours on end, without being manipulated into spending your money. So, fire up your Steam account, boot up one of the, put your wallet away (for now), and check out the best free-to-play Steam games of 2018. When it comes to MOBAs (multiplayer online battle arenas), not every game has to be a fantasy-based romp with daggers, spells and cutesy champions.
Other games were 'online' too, but only with leaderboards and such things. I've often seen lists about online multiplayer games for Mac, but weirdly enough, Driver: San Francisco was never listed. That tells me I can't take those lists seriously and there's probably more games that aren't featured in there. So, if anyone knows. 8 Ball Pool is the biggest & best multiplayer Pool game online! Play billiards for FREE against other players & friends in 1-on-1 matches, enter tournaments to win big! Level up and earn Pool Coins for your wins.
Take the science fiction ship battles of. Sure, it’s a MOBA-style 5v5 affair, but now you’re in control of a powerful frigate as your hurtle across the stars and attempt to destroy your opponent’s base before your own suffers the same fate. Skewing the classic MOBA concept as a space-based naval affair gives the setup you know and love a much-needed breath of fresh air, while blowing away all the cobwebs. You can customize your ship and crew, as well as hotkeying weapons and abilities so you can combine the best ships for the task ahead. It’s one of the most exciting MOBAs on PC, and it's free to play on Steam. Download here: 2.
Much like Paladins, offers a team-based shooter that’s part-Overwatch, part MOBA and part something brand new. Instead of having you defend a slow-moving carriage through a map (because that never gets old) or destroy an enemy base (in classic MOBA style), Gigantic tasks you with killing an enemy giant while attempting to protect your own.
Sounds mad, right? It is, but a brilliant kind of mad all the same. With an art style that mashes up Studio Ghibli flourishes and classic Disney cuteness, Gigantic’s 20-strong character roster offers enough skills, weapons and attributes to appease even the pickiest of players. Each match is a 5v5 event, with players working together to power up their own Guardian (that’s your giant weapon/walking base) while risking it all to lay siege to the enemy. The roving nature of your Guardian makes every match an intense affair, and best of all, it’s 100% free on Steam. Download here: 3. MMOs and film licenses don’t often mix well – from The Matrix Online to Star Wars Galaxies, recognizable universes have rarely lasted in the realm of persistent online worlds.
Except for the enduring, that is. Retroactively made free-to-play following its launch back in 2010, STO gifts you with a crew and a Federation starship and sets you free to sail the stars in true Trekkie fashion. There are microtransactions available should you want to speed up the levelling/resource gathering process, but STO is consistently generous with its free content, especially to new players looking to see their very own final frontier. It’s also set within ongoing Star Trek canon, taking place roughly three decades after the events of Star Trek Nemesis (you know, that terrible TNG film with Tom Hardy). With an economy, ever-shifting alliances and a still impressively vast community, STO manages to bottle that magic that makes Star Trek so timeless. Download here: 4.
Paladins launched just after from Blizzard, and it's hard not see the similarities. Still, that doesn’t mean Hi-Rez Studios’ free-to-play FPS isn’t worth your time – it just means you get play something that’s often just as fun and rewarding without forcing you to break the bank with a full-game price. With a menagerie of characters to choose from (known as Champions), each match offers an objective-based experience that feels more like triple-A fare than other free-to-play shooters. Paladins includes everything from Overwatch-style payload defence/offence to a Survival mode akin to the popular ‘battle royale’ sub-genre made popular by PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds and Fortnite. It offers a consistently enjoyable and rewarding place to spend your time, even if it’s a tad derivative. It's free to play on Steam, and there's no need to sink any money into it as long as you’re willing to grind for the first few hours.
Download here: 5. MMOs set within the confines of a fantasy setting are hardly new – in fact, almost all of them fit that description to a tee – but very few of them manage to offer just as much diverse content as the Korean-made. You can do all your usual MMO minutia – questing, gathering resources, looting new weapons and gear, and so on – but grind through its early levels and you’ll discover an online world full of surprises.
Want to conquer lands and lay claim to them? Fancy building your very own castle? Double check. How about forming an alliance and besieging another for control of their land? Triple check. Oh, and how about a naval combat setting that practically adds an entire open-ocean to explore and plunder?
All the checks. ArcheAge offers all this and more. Its naval combat mechanics are particularly impressive, enabling you to dispense maritime justice or hunt for loot as a virtual pirate. Download here: 6. Free-to-play shooters in their more traditional, deathmatch-esque form are often a hit and miss affair, but despite all those polished triple-A offerings from the likes of Activision and EA, Crytek Kiev has managed to put together a robust little FPS that can be just as exciting and enjoyable as many other entries in the bullet-ridden genre. Offers four classes to choose from, with weapons, gear, attachments and specific skills tied to each one.
Having the right balance of classes in your squad adds a more Battlefield-style teamwork ethic, especially when engineers can repair armour and snipers can pull off game-changing one-shot kills. After four years of rotation on the field, Warface has also honed its online economy, neatly offering you the ability to spend in-game currency on a rental system that lets you test out guns and gear before investing time and cash into your own version. Download here: 7. Are you looking for a MOBA spin-off that’s light on the RTS elements but deep enough to keep you engaged through every match? Well, we’ve got just the free-to-play beauty for you.
Takes that classic MOBA structure – funnelling you down a channel with loads of units as you attempt to destroy a base at the other end – but strips out all the busywork in between. It might not appeal to the hardcore among us, but for those looking to replicate the relaxed involvement of a mobile title at your PC, this is right up your alley. That’s not to say it’s a spectator title. You’ll still need to survey the battlefield and use your energy reserves to build units to counter those already on the field. There are a trio of modes available, but it’s in the 3v3 mode the setup works best, with matches often coming down to which team pulls off the best combo. Download here: 8.
Okay, so the word ‘war’ features quite a lot in some of the best and most popular free-to-play titles, but that’s because few things are as fun to wage when you’re spending no money. Another such example is – an online melee brawler/shooter that’s evolved into one of the most enjoyable games on PC. Putting you in control of a sword-wielding space ninja (yes, it’s as cool as it sounds), the game feels like a cross between For Honor and Destiny 2, with modes offering PvE and PvP matches to keep you engaged.
There’s even a story mode, and it’s actually pretty fun, if a little repetitive in places. Developer Digital Extremes has also been dedicated to Warframe, rolling out regular updates and events that offer new upgrades and expansion on its rich lore. It may have floundered on consoles, but Warframe is one of the best examples of how to do the best free Steam games right. Download here: 9. There’s been a resurgence for the sci-fi dogfighting subgenre in the last few years – thanks in part to the rise of VR – but there aren’t many titles that let you take to the stars and shoot space ships for nada. In fact, there’s just the one, and it’s one of the most enjoyable games we’ve played on this list.
The game is split into four main modes – PvP, Open Space, Sector Conquest and Missions – offering plenty of content for absolutely no pounds/euros/dollars. You can atomize other players in classic deathmatches, explore an impressively vast universe in Open Space, or head into co-op for a bit of PvE action in Missions. You can set up custom battles with friends if you’re in mood for a private dust up. Ship designs offer different attributes depending on your play style, and earning new ones can be pulled off without spending a penny if you’re willing to grind. Download here: 10. Part MOBA, part RTS, borrows those now ubiquitous decision queues and adds a neat twist: instead of each player acting out their turn one after the other, everyone gets to play at the same time.
A strategy game in actual real-time as players move units around the map, exchanging actions in a chaotic flurry. It can be a little more luck based than we would like (since you don’t know what you’re opponents are going to do next, it’s often guess work alone), but the pace soon hooks you in. Decision, one of two main modes in the game, forces you to make these decisions in 20 seconds or under for each turn (making every match hella fun and hyper intense), while Resolution slows things down into four phases as you plan out your moves and set traps as you attempt to win each 4v4 showdown. Download here.
Update: At number 8, we've added Total War: Warhammer to our list, the latest entry in a long-running tabletop franchise, perfected for the PC. Strategy games make you think.
They're not like most shooters that offer mindless gameplay, or the adventure game that has you leaping off cliffs and driving boats. Strategy games require your brain juices at all times to plan each move carefully and analyze what the opponent will do next – quickly. They require you to develop armies, build civilizations and gather resources in the process. But strategy games aren't just about the gameplay: they typically offer sprawling, geopolitical stories too that hook players and keep them focused on the campaign. That said, what makes a strategy game great is how it pulls players into its mythology and allows them to carry out missions without overcomplicating it. Here is a handful of strategy games on the PC and Mac that achieve this balance perfectly. Prev Page 1 of 9 Next Prev Page 1 of 9 Next 1.
StarCraft II. Blizzard Entertainment launched the first StarCraft sci-fi military strategy game back in 1998, and while it was extremely popular, the game wasn't the mammoth product StarCraft II has become. With the sequel, Blizzard has released three installments that span one huge campaign: Wings of Liberty (2010), Heart of the Swarm (2013) and Legacy of the Void (2015). Each of these releases focus on a specific protagonist group: human exiles called the Terrans in Wings of Liberty, the Borg-like insectoids called Zerg in Heart of the Swarm, and the telepathic alien race known as the Protoss in Legacy of the Void. The overall campaign takes place four years after the Brood War expansion pack for the original StarCraft, beginning with Jim Raynor's quest to take down the tyrannical Terran Dominion. StarCraft II succeeds by combining sharp strategic gameplay and balance with an immersive story and scenery.
The game also comes with its own level editor, allowing players to share their maps and mods via the Battle.net online community. Of course, StarCraft II can be played online – it's one of the widest-played eSports worldwide – but currently it does not provide local LAN play. StarCraft II can only be purchased from Blizzard Entertainment digitally and in boxed versions. Prev Page 2 of 9 Next Prev Page 2 of 9 Next 2. Warcraft III: Reign of Chaos. Here's another popular strategy game from Blizzard, though with a decidedly fantasy theme. It was released way back in 2002 and features a single-player campaign story that's told through the eyes of four races: Humans, Orcs, the Undead, and the Night Elves.
As with StarCraft, players are typically faced with a map covered in a black fog, which is slowly removed as you explores the area (Diablo does this, too). You begin by mining resources, building settlements and establishing troops in order to protect your assets and take control of other parts of the map. A day/night cycle keeps players on their toes, too.
There are a total of five campaigns in Warcraft III that center on a specific race: one for the Night Elves, one for the Undead, one for the Humans, and two for the Orcs. Objectives are labeled as 'quests' and are rolled out as the player explores a map. The are both main quests an optional quests to perform, the former being required in order to move the story forward – natch.
Warcraft III also offers a multiplayer component that can be played over local LAN. Blizzard even released an expansion pack called The Frozen Throne that was published back in 2003. Both the original game and the expansion can be purchased for the PC and Mac via Blizzard's online portal, and in a Battle Chest retail box.
Prev Page 3 of 9 Next Prev Page 3 of 9 Next 3. This strategy game is rather new for the PC, Mac and Linux platforms, developed by Firaxis Games and published by 2K Games in February 2016. It takes place 20 years after XCOM: Enemy Unknown (2012), and sees the Earth taken over by aliens – what else? – despite XCOM's best efforts. In this installment, XCOM is now part of a resistance movement aimed to take back control of the planet. In the single-player campaign, players assume command of XCOM, a former military organization that is now a mere resistance force. A new Avenger mobile base has been established where from you issue commands while spearheading research and engineering departments to create weapons and other tools that will help fight off the hostile aliens.
What makes XCOM 2 stand out is its maps, which are lush and rich in detail, and it's strategy-rich, turn-based combat. They're also different each time you play them, keeping the game fresh. In addition to the single-player campaign, there's also a peer-to-peer multiplayer mode, pitting players against each other using squads mixed with alien and XCOM units. XCOM 2 can be purchased through Steam, Amazon and other retailers in boxed and digital editions. Prev Page 4 of 9 Next Prev Page 4 of 9 Next 4. Cities: Skylines. If you were disappointed by the messy launch of the thoroughly disappointing SimCity reboot back in 2013, take solace in the fact that two years later a development team with a greater understanding of its audience took charge of the genre in a much more respectable, and less flagrant, manner.
Sacrificing all of the always-online DLC quirks in favor of hosting bigger cities and Steam Workshop support for mods, Cities: Skylines is everything classic SimCity players wanted, and would have gotten if it weren't for whatever the hell happened at. Cities: Skylines retains the appeal of early city building simulations with a handful of modern twists. An in-game social media service for instance called Chirper lets residents get in contact with you, the world designer, to voice complaints. More noteworthy, though, is the thrill of managing traffic routes on a district to district basis. In fact, most of your governance in Cities: Skylines is separated by districts, making taxation as true to the United States as developmentally possible. Prev Page 5 of 9 Next Prev Page 5 of 9 Next 5.
Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War. Developed by Relic Entertainment and published by THQ in 2004, this military sci-fi game is based on the Warhammer 40,000 tabletop wargame. The game takes place on the imperial planet of Tartarus that's currently overrun by Orks. In the background, the human-run Imperium is in constant struggle with the Orks – along with those humans serving the demonic Chaos and the Eldar (space elves) – in a struggle to keep the human race alive. That said, the game provides four armies the player can use throughout the single-player campaign: Space Marines (superhuman soldiers), Chaos Marines (mutated marines), the psychic race of Eldars (again, space elves), and the savage Orks. Resources include power and requisition, the latter of which is generated by the army headquarters.
Power is generated by establishing generators that will decay over time, keeping the player busy. The game begins with you establishing your main headquarters and several basic units. After that, you're directed to focus on capturing and holding strategic locations on the map that can later be used to harvest additional resources and unlock nearby areas on said map. Battles are won by defeating bases occupied by enemy forces, or by holding on to locations for a period of time. There are three expansion packs for this RTS title currently available: Winter Assault (2005), Dark Crusade (2006) and Soulstorm (2008). All of these, including the base game, can be purchased on Steam rather cheap.
Prev Page 6 of 9 Next Prev Page 6 of 9 Next 6. This is an oldie but a goodie, developed by Relic Entertainment and published by Sierra Entertainment in 1999. The primary protagonists are the Kushan, who at one time were exiled to a colony of prison ships after losing a galactic war.
Other races include the Taiidan, an interstellar empire that rules most of the galaxy, the Bentusi traders, the Kadeshi, the Turanic Raiders and the Galactic Council. A key element that separates Homeworld from the other games in this article is that it's played in a 100% 3D space, hence its dedicated following. The playable races consist of the Taiidan and the Kushan.
Each have their specific strengths and weaknesses, and are initially tasked to gather minerals from asteroids and harvest dust clouds using special spaceships, which bring these resources back to the player's resource controller ship, carrier or mothership. Ultimately, the task at hand is to keep the fleet alive as it completes missions and gathers resources.
Ther object of the story is to locate the homeworld of the Kushan, called Hiigara. This story spans sixteen missions across the single-player campaign, which sees the surviving ships of the fleet carried over to the next mission. There was an online multiplayer component to the game as well – allowing players to helm either the Taiidan or Kushan. Homeworld is available for Windows and Mac OS X in a Remastered collection by Gearbox Software on Steam, which includes the remastered versions of Homeworld and Homeworld 2, classic versions of the two games, and more.
Prev Page 7 of 9 Next Prev Page 7 of 9 Next 7. The Banner Saga 2. Like the first game, The Banner Saga 2 reprises the Choose Your Own Adventure format, but with a handful of necessary refinements to its mechanics. While it's not a full-on video game sequel, but rather an episodic continuation of the first game, quite literally beginning at Chapter 8, Banner Saga 2 manages to take the battle system from the first and turn (base) it on its head. By incorporating new characters, classes, and by default, new abilities, the game feels a little less like a two-year-late second episode and more like a respectful follow-up to a beloved faux-nordic classic strategy game.
Also exclusive to the sequel are instances of more cleanly integrated storytelling in-battle, all without ignoring the need for an expanded scale that'll make you feel like an ant compared to your combatants. Prev Page 8 of 9 Next Prev Page 8 of 9 Next 8. Total War: Warhammer.
You might take one look at Total War: Warhammer and think, 'Ugh, just another fantasy game,' but you'd be wrong. In fact, the Warhammer franchise from Games Workshop has been around since 1983, long before World of Warcraft ever came about. Total War: Warhammer in particular takes the ideas of the ideas of the influential Warhammer tabletop games and brings them to a monitor near you, replenished with lore that veterans will appreciate, but also with some really intense battles between humans, orcs, dwarves and even vampires. With units spread across a huge map, there's still a strategy to be had here (despite the showy cutscenes and suspenseful gameplay). Total War: Warhammer is about all about getting into the nitty gritty of your faction, which you have four to choose from – each one completely distinct from the rest. Still, Total War: Warhammer is all about real-time combat, so you'll spend most of your time with the game thinking on your toes. Don't confuse this with the likes of Starcraft, though, where you spend most of your time building bases across an even playing field.
Total War: Warhammer, instead, is all about up-close battles and all-out warfare, hence the whole 'Total War' thing. Prev Page 9 of 9 Next Prev Page 9 of 9 Next.