18 Best Steam Winter Sale Games Of 2018 You Can Grab For Less Than $18 Each Into the Breach – $14.99 $10.04 An indie strategy wonder by the makers of FTL: Faster Than Light. The Ultimate List of 50 Free Mac Games Muj Parkes on May 18th 2010. Free, freeware. As well as our 2012 roundup of 30+ Great Free Games for Your Mac and our 2013 roundup of the best Indie Games for the Mac! First Person Shooters. 2018 Top 5 Business Apps.
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Only to get swindled by psychologically manipulative. It’s just one of the many ways in which Modern gaming has plenty of upsides, but some of the current trends worry us. Here are six ways that today's gaming has lost the magic of yesteryear, and how to cope with them., and because these tricks are so profitable, Advertisements and in-app purchases in mobile apps and games can be really annoying.
Unfortunately, they won't be going away any time soon. The good news is, not all developers are so greedy! Here are some of the best free Steam games that don’t rely on scummy monetization methods. 15 Free Games on Steam You can download these games at no charge and play them without worrying about any pressure to spend money in-game. Iron Snout Rating: 98% Genre: Fighting.
Eterenal Senia is an RPG that anyone can play. The game is built on simplicity and straightforwardness, yet it’s deep enough to provide hours of enjoyment. It offers a complete experience, with puzzles, equipment, and a satisfying story.
Eternal Senia was Here are the best free game development software and tools you can use to start making your dream game today. Over the course of one year and is available to all for free. Download: Eternal Senia on 4.
Alien Swarm Rating: 95% Genre: Third-Person Shooter. Alien Swarm is a Tired of arcade shooters with no realism? These seven tactical shooters require you to play as a team and prioritize smart thinking over a fast trigger finger. Where you and your friends crawl through levels and solve puzzles while fighting off hordes of aggressive aliens. It’s fun but hard, and you’re bound to slam your table out of frustration at least a few times. Not a bad way to kill time when you’re with online friends.
Download: Alien Swarm on 5. Shadow Warrior Classic Rating: 95% Genre: First-Person Shooter? Well, Shadow Warrior Classic is kind of like that, but crossed with a bit of Duke Nukem. It’s intense and gory and downright silly at times, but it holds up well even after 20 years (as well as an MS-DOS game can hold up, anyways). Download: Shadow Warrior Classic on 6. Sisyphus Reborn Rating: 94% Genre: Adventure Story Sisyphus Reborn is a short game driven by its mysterious narrative and atmosphere.
It’s all quite pointless, but maybe that’s the point. It’s the kind of game that’ll make you think, and even if philosophy isn’t quite your cup of tea, I promise Sisyphus Reborn will leave an impression on you. It only takes 30 minutes to beat. Why not give it a go?
Download: Sisyphus Reborn on 7. The Desolate Hope Rating: 92% Genre: Action Platformer Here we have one of the strangest games you’ll play this year. The Desolate Hope is quirky, to say the least, and so unique that it’s hard to even describe. It’s futuristic but also retro.
It has RPG elements but isn’t quite an RPG. And the one-of-a-kind art style will blow you away. If nothing else, you should play it just for that! Download: The Desolate Hope on 8. You Have to Win the Game Rating: 92% Genre: Platformer Looking for a healthy dose of 80s retro platformer fun? You Have to Win the Game will fill that void. It’s an exploration game so you won’t see much action, but don’t take that to mean it’s boring — “thrilling yet relaxing” is what you should expect.
You can also ramp up the difficulty with the You Only Live Once mode! Download: You Have to Win the Game on 9. Sigils of Elohim Rating: 92% Genre: Puzzle Sigils of Elohim is actually a companion mini-game to The Talos Principle. By solving the various puzzles in this game, you unlock bonuses for the other game.
But even if you don’t have The Talos Principle (which is a great game), you can still enjoy this one for what it is: a basic “fit the blocks into a shape” puzzle game. Download: Sigils of Elohim on 10. Fistful of Frags Rating: 91% Genre: First-Person Shooter While most multiplayer first-person shooters take on a military or futuristic theme, Fistful of Frags is unique with If you want to inject a serving of the Wild West into your gaming sessions, you really need to check out these awesome games. It features duel, free-for-all, and team modes to satisfy all kinds of playstyles, plus some interesting gameplay mechanics (e.g. Dual wielding) and a unique scoring system. Download: Fistful of Frags on 11.
Endless Sky Rating: 90% Genre: Open World Not to, Endless Sky is an open world game where you explore, trade, and fight in space as a ship. Unfortunately it’s not a multiplayer game, but the main storyline takes about 10 hours to beat and then opens up to hours of more fun, so you’ll definitely get your money’s worth. (I’m joking, it’s free!) Download: Endless Sky on 12.
Port of Call Rating: 90% Genre: First-Person Adventure You board a ship, you don’t remember who you are, and nothing is what it seems. Port of Call only takes about 30 minutes to beat, but those minutes are well worth the download if you enjoy horror and suspense. If nothing else, it’s an interesting experiment on whether short narrative games can succeed — and I think Port of Call proves it to be true. Download: Port of Call on 13. Teeworlds Rating: 89% Genre: Action Platformer Teeworlds is like Kirby meets Mario meets Quake. In this multiplayer platformer arena game, you play as one of many cute little ball-shaped people trying to kill other ball-shaped people. The grappling hook mechanic introduces an exciting physics component on top of the weapons and game modes, which include Deathmatch and Capture the Flag.
Download: Teeworlds on 14. Super Crate Box Rating: 89% Genre: Action Platformer Super Crate Box puts you inside a box arena with no way out and sees how long you can survive against endless waves of monsters. Enemies you fail to kill respawn and move faster every time. Various weapons spawn around the arena at random, each one having different advantages and disadvantages. A fun arcade-y experience, for sure. Download: Super Crate Box on 15.
TrackMania Nations Forever Rating: 88% Genre: Racing No Not all driving games are created equal and like with any art, someone creates something new every once in a while. So what are the most important racing titles in the history of video games? Offers a better, more satisfying experience than TrackMania. This particular game is the only free title in the series, but with 65 fun stock tracks, an in-game track editor, an in-game video studio for recording footage, and multiplayer capability, TrackMania Nations Forever is simply amazing.
Download: TrackMania Nations Forever on 5 Free-to-Play Games on Steam Unlike the above, these games include in-game purchases. But they do so in a way that isn’t invasive, so you can enjoy them without spending money.
Team Fortress 2 Rating: 93% Genre: First-Person Shooter Team Fortress 2 played a huge role in popularizing the whole “pay for cosmetics” business model, and even after all these years remains one of the fairest forms of monetization of all the games on Steam. You can either buy cosmetic-only items or dropped/unlockable items that do change gameplay but are never strictly better than the default loadouts. Download: Team Fortress 2 on 17.
Path of Exile Rating: 92% Genre: Action RPG In a lot of ways, Path of Exile is. Most notable is the fact that Path of Exile is completely free and committed to an “ethical monetization” model. It has no gated content and no pay-to-win perks; only cosmetic items that are entirely optional. Is there any wonder why Path of Exile is still going strong? This is free-to-play done right. Download: Path of Exile on 18.
Warframe Rating: 91% Genre: Third-Person Shooter Often described as a “poor man’s Destiny,” Warframe is a multiplayer cooperative PvE first-person shooter that sets you off to complete narrative missions and quests. It also has a PvP mode for those with a competitive itch. Yet despite the game’s success, the developers have never pushed a hard monetization model. Anything you can buy, you can also acquire in-game, and it’s never a grind because the game itself is fun.
Download: Warframe on 19. Dota 2 Rating: 87% Genre: MOBA Dota 2 is the second most-popular MOBA in the world. But whereas League of Legends (its main competitor) forces its players to grind and grind to unlock champions, Dota 2 gives all players access to every hero Dota 2 is a hard game. When you launch it and start playing, it's easy to become overwhelmed. These five tips we are going to cover will make you a better Dota 2 player. You only spend money on cosmetics, and yes, Dota 2 cosmetics are truly cosmetic! They have zero effect on gameplay.
Download: Dota 2 on 20. Battlerite Rating: 86% Genre: Team Arena Brawler Imagine the Arena PvP mode in World of Warcraft but with a top-down scheme, every ability replaced with skillshots, no mana, and no random numbers. Well, that game is called Battlerite.
It distills team-based PvP gameplay down to its essence: outplay the other team and kill them before they kill you. As a free player, you have a limited champion rotation with the ability to unlock champions with in-game currency earned through playing. Download: Battlerite on What Are Your Favorite Free Steam Games?
These 20 games will provide you with dozens of hours of awesome gaming at zero cost. They prove that you don’t have to pay a ton of money for an enjoyable game, so why not check them out?
You could find a new favorite. For more, check out Tired of spending $60 on every new game release? Want to take a peek at the internal code of games? Enter the world of open source video games. And if you want more free Steam games, be sure to check out on reddit! Which of these games appeal most to you? Know of any other high-quality but non-exploitative free Steam games that we missed?
Tell us down in the comments! Explore more about:,.
If you're keen to get into PC gaming, then Steam is the best place for you to hunt for new games. That's because there are more than 23,000 available through the platform - and counting. The great thing about Steam is that you can buy a game, download it and then install it as many times as you like.
Steam also rolls out automatic updates too, so there's no need to worry about manually re-downloading anything or checking to see if there's some new update you've missed out on. Like most gaming, movie and TV catalogues nowadays, the only problem is there's too much choice. Sure that's not a bad problem to have, but it does mean that you can get lost in Steam's giant labyrinth of games, become tempted by its frequent sales and end up with a stack of titles you've never booted-up. But don't worry, we're here with a solution. Below we've listed some of the best Steam games, including recent releases and golden oldies. We update this list regularly, so be sure to come back soon for more suggestions. Fortnite Do we really need to write up a Fortnite explainer?
Well, for those who have been hiding under a rock over the past year or so, Fortnite is best described as an apocalyptic survival game. But rather than gory deaths, it's all bright colours, cool add-ons and fancy weapons - although there is violence, it's far more than that. The game has exploded recently partly due to its highly-addictive nature, you've essentially got to survive and kill everyone else on an island over the course of 20 minutes, and the fact it's got some big celeb fans, including Drake and the England Football Team. What Remains of Edith Finch This indie smash arrived in 2017, but as it recently won a 'best game' BAFTA award, it’s time to give it another plug. What Remains of Edith Finch is a narrative-led adventure in which you walk, first-person style, around as Edith Finch, exploring the house in which you grew up. You look over the preserved relics of dead family members and are sucked into vignettes that tell the stories of how various Finches died.
This sounds grim, we get it. However, its charming style and magical realism tilt make What Remains of Edith Finch involving and touching rather than depressing. It plays out a little like an interactive movie. You can’t fail as such, aside from getting lost, and the entire experience lasts 2-3 hours rather than 20.
Don’t buy this if you’re going to feel short-changed by its length, but if you’ve played and enjoyed Firewatch, Everybody’s Gone to the Rapture or Gone Home, you’ll love What Remains of Edith Finch. Ni No Kuni II: Revenant Kingdon The first Ni No Kuni game was a collaboration with Japanese animation masters Studio Ghibli. Ni No Kuni II is not, but retains the same charming art style.
It also changes the fighting mechanics. Instead of training up avatars to fight for you, Ni No Kuni II has a fun real-time battle system. You command three fighters with fast, slow and magic attacks, and the ability to dodge. There’s a more action-packed feel this time.
It’s not all about action, though. While Ni No Kuni II is an action-adventure RPG, you also build up a kingdom, which plays a role in earning bonuses for your characters. This part is surprisingly moreish.
The story is more conventional than that of the first game, which might be down to Studio Ghibli’s limited involvement. However, there’s plenty of fantasy fuel and it’s more involving than your average game. Into the Breach Not every top steam game is an epic open world title that would sell for $60 on PS4 and Xbox One.
Into the Breach is an elegant sci-fi strategy blast you can play on your lunch break at work. It is made by the team behind Faster than Light, still one of our favourite PC games of the last decade. And for the handheld gaming veterans out there, there are shades of Advance Wars to it too. Earth has been invaded, and almost taken over, by aliens. In Into the Breach you control groups of mechs sent from the future to reverse this fate. That may sound like a mind-bending premise, but it actually proves the plot doesn’t matter too much here. We know Earth will come out tops, it’s just a case of how.
Each encounter takes in an 8x8 block grid, your battlefield. Play unfolds in turns, and your mechs have to stop aliens from destroying too many of the field’s buildings and outposts. It has the tactical purity of chess. As you play you can upgrade your mechs to improve your chances. Like FTL, Into the Breach is moreish, smart and deceptively deep. Surviving Mars Some screenshots make Surviving Mars look like The Sims: Red Planet edition.
However it’s closer to Sim City meets The Martian. You build an outpost on a patch of Mars, and have to keep it running to avoid your colonists dying in on the planet’s harsh surface. It’s harder than it sounds. Mis-managing resources in Sim City or Civilization may make your inhabitants angry, or lower your income. But in Surviving Mars it can cause a chain reaction that sees life support systems fail. You’ll hear “a colonist has died”, and be left scrambling to fix the problem before other inhabitants start dying like bubbles popping as they touch the ground. There’s work to be done on Surviving Mars’s interface but its survivalist approach to “city” building is compelling.
Final Fantasy XV After the massively-multiplayer Final Fantasy XIV, Square Enix has finally turned back to the series’s single player roots with Final Fantasy XV. It came to PS4 in late 2016 but was only ported to PC in March 2018. However, you do get all the DLC released on consoles and, if your PC is beefy enough, better frame rates.
Final Fantasy XV is a little different to the FF games of old. You travel around an open world packed with Americana-style buildings, all your companions are human and the combat plays out in real time, not as turns. However, you can tell this is a Final Fantasy game just by watching a 15-second clip of it in action. New Indie Notable: Descenders The PC tends to get associated with the kind of games you sit down at for hours. Until your eyes are red and part of you begins to regret your life choices. But it doesn’t have to be that way. You can play Descenders in quick blasts.
If you can drag yourself away from its moreish-ness, anyway. You’re a downhill free rider who has to get down procedurally generated courses with as much style as possible, prefably using a gamepad. It might remind you of the Tony Hawk games, when they were good, or snowboard console classic SSX. The use of generated “tracks” means you can’t master courses, but it’s the mastery of the bike’s physics you’re aiming for anyway. A career mode pits you against a series of courses in the same style of environment, each with objectives.
Finish the “boss course” and you unlock a new terrain. But you have limited lives for the whole run. A mix of mobile game style and unforgiving old-school progression mechanics gives Descenders a fresh feel. Not every game has to be about destroying aliens or shooting off the faces of unnamed soldiers.
American Truck Simulator is like mindfulness meditation compared to those titles. You drive a big 18 wheeler-style truck over the long highways of the US, delivering cargo from A to B. Breaking the traffic codes doesn’t end in a GTA-style police chase, just a fine. This is the sort of game you can put on like a cosy slipper after a long day at work. There’s a business side to it too, though.
At the start you’re a lowly contractor, but earn enough money and you can build your own shipping empire. Pillars of Eternity PC gamers who have been playing since the 90s will remember all the fuss made about the Baldur’s Gate titles. Some of their biggest fans will get teary telling you about the memories of their favourite side characters. Isometric role-playing games like Baldur’s Gate don’t cut it in the AAA world anymore, but Pillars of Eternity brings back their essence for the Steam crowd. This is a difficult, slightly throwback-flavoured RPG where you control a band of classic fantasy-style adventurers. It’s made by Obsidian, the team behind Fallout: New Vegas.
Pillars of Eternity II is on the horizon too. If you like your RPGs fantasy-themed, also consider Torment: Tides of Numenera. Legend of Grimrock II Another throwback to a style of game that has disappeared, Legend of Grimrock 2 is a dungeon crawler where you move in blocks, not freely. Why would you want that? It changes your relationship with the environment, making it feel more like an intricate puzzle than just an open world a texture artist has been let loose on.
There are an awful lot of actual puzzle involved here too, in-between the bouts of classic 'dungeons and dragons' style combat encounters. Retro as the play style is, Legend of Grimrock 2 looks fantastic, with plenty of outdoors areas to stop you from getting bogged down in dimly-lit dungeons. The battle royale that put the subgenre back on the shrinking map PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds When it comes to in-vogue games, few titles continue to capture the zeitgeist (and fill it full of bullet holes) like PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds. It may have one of the worst names ever, but that hasn’t stopped PUBG from putting the ‘battle royale’ subgenre on the map and making itself into a phenomenon.
Sure, there’s a lot of hype still surrounding it, but the game behind all the coverage and Twitch fascination is still one of the most addictive on Steam. That simple premise - parachute into a map with no gear, scavenge for weapons and armour, then fight for survival with a single life in a map that continually shrinks - is still gripping, even if it has a few too many bugs. Whether you’re teaming up with friends or braving its maps alone, PUBG remains one of the most fun shooters on the market right now. A punishing but rewarding action RPG Kingdom Come: Deliverance One of the most recent releases on this list, offers an experience that’s both warmly familiar and deeply alien. Set in a fictional Medieval Europe, it’s a first-person RPG where dialogue choices shape your world as much as your ability to problem solve and your skills in melee combat.
It’s a game of incredible freedom, enabling you to carve a path through its Dark Ages setting however you see fit. You might get off your face on schnapps and get in a fight with the town drunk; you might start filling your pockets with the gold of unsuspecting townsfolk, Thief-style or stain your blade with blood in the battlefield. Part Elder Scrolls, part Dark Souls, part something else entirely, it’s an action-RPG that punishes as much as it empowers. It also runs best on PC (with the right specs, naturally) so get it on the download pronto. A Tom Clancy success story that's fun as hell to play Rainbow Six: Siege Who knew, way back in 2015, that a Tom Clancy game would become one of the industry’s biggest success stories. But here we are, in 2018, with a game that boasts over 25 million registered players and its third year of consecutive content updates and premium bells and whistles. It’s one of those success stories that keeps on succeeding, and for one very important reason: it’s fun as hell to play.
Dialling back the Rainbow Six formula to its roots - two teams fight in the same map, one protecting an objective while the other attack and fights their way in - no two matches in Siege are ever the same. Barricading doors, breaching through walls, blasting through ceilings and building an operator that’s attuned to your playstyle. It might not be groundbreaking, but add in the limited time Outbreak mode (think Siege plus zombies) and you’ve got one of Steam’s most complete packages.
Celeste is one of the most memorable games we've played in years Celeste Coming from the indie team at gave us TowerFall and TowerFall Ascension comes one of the most rewarding pixel platformers in years. As you climb the titular mountain, flame-haired heroine Madeline will battle her innermost demons as much as the harsh and dangerous conditions around her. In its simplest form, Celeste is a tight, 2D, twitch-style platformer, but in reality it’s one of the memorable games we’ve played in many years. As poignant in narrative as it is unforgiving in mechanics, Celeste comes with over 700 ‘scenes’ to traverse, countless secrets to uncover and a story that will grip you as much as the muscle-memory building formula of its platforming. For a game built around the simple mechanics of jump, air-dash and climb, there’s an incredible amount of depth to be found as you claw your way to the summit in more ways that one.
Complex combat and tactical breadth make Divinity Original Sin 2 a worthwhile play Divinity: Original Sin 2 When Divinity: Original Sin 2 arrived in 2017, it had quite the task ahead of it: living up to the legacy of its predecessor, which just so happened to be one of the most accomplished RPGs of all time. Then what does developer Larian Studios do? It only goes and follows it up with one of the most essential additions to the genre in years.
Am enchanting fantasy world, a deep and complicated combat model and one of the most gripping stories you’ll experience outside of a 1,000 page tome. The big selling point, and the main ingredient of Divinity: Original Sin 2’s secret sauce, is the complexity of its combat. You control a party of characters alongside your own custom avatar, and you can utilise each one individually in battle.
With countless skills and attributes to mix and match, the breadth of tactics available makes this an imposing yet deeply rewarding way to test your RPG abilities. Stellaris is a new evolution of the strategy genre Stellaris The grand and operatic strategy genre has produced some true classics on PC, experiences consoles have consistently struggled and failed to emulate.
From Crusader Kings to Europa Universalis, these are games with tactics and guile expected in bucket loads from the off. Well, it just so happens the developer of those very games has taken that deeply immersive concept and transported it to the dark ocean of space.
Enter Stellaris, an evolution of the genre that takes the space exploration of EVE Online and Mass Effect and hits the hyperdrive button. You’ll travel through myriad procedural galaxies, filled with thousands of planets and countless alien species, each one possessing unique traits, economies and social strata. Whether it’s the power (and consistent balancing act) of interstellar diplomacy or the deep customisation of starship designs, there’s a wealth of sci-fi lore and mechanics to delve into with Stellaris. Dota 2 has a simple but intoxicating set up Dota 2 By far one of the oldest games on the list - well, that is if you consider 2013 old - Valve’s MOBA (multiplayer online battle arena) is still one of the most addictive titles on Steam. It’s also the only game on this list that’s free-to-play, so you don’t even need to have a healthy bank balance to enjoy its moreish battles. Valve has been consistently updating and overhauling the game since launch, making it one of the most evolved MOBAs on the market. If you’ve never played it before, it’s a simple yet intoxicating setup: two teams of five players face off in a large map.
Each one is defending a base with an ‘Ancient; inside that must be protected at all costs. Find your opponent’s base and raze it to the ground to win.
What plays are are brilliant hero v hero showdowns, brutal ambushes, tactical plays and nonstop action. Cuphead is as challenging as it is stunning Cuphead Run and gun platformers have carved a niche out for themselves on mobile, but they’re a rarity on PC. Thankfully, this one was built to be a Microsoft exclusive with in mind and the result is one of the most unique gaming experiences you’ll ever have. Designed to capture the look and atmosphere of 1930s cartoons, places you in the shoes of the titular hero and tasks you with battling across three distinct words and bosses that will capture your imagination with their ingenuity that crush your resolve with their difficulty. Recommending a notoriously tough game might sound counter-intuitive, but the steep difficulty curve is part of its charm. With a unique soundtrack and those standout visuals at your side you’ll earn every stage clearance like piece of territory in a war, each victory feeling that bit more rewarding. Brutal and beautiful in equal measure, Cuphead is a must have Steam title.
Subnautica may be new but it's making waves Subnautica Another relatively fresh release on this list, Subnautica is already making waves (pardon the pun) despite having only dropped in January of this year. A survival game set in the depths of an ocean on an alien world, it’s unique twist on the classic template makes for a game that’s both captivating to watch and challenging in its many interconnected mechanics. You’ll explore shallow reefs, dangerous trenches on the seabed and everything in between, all the while managing your precious oxygen supply. Oh, and there’s an entire ecosystem of alien marine life to contend with. Plenty of these fishy and mammalian critters want to add you to their menu, so you’ll need to outsmart and avoid them while searching for resources to build new equipment and tools.
Like all the best survival games, the very best materials lie in the most dangerous of places. Dare you swim deep enough to find them? Wolfenstein II is visceral and dazzling Wolfenstein II: The New Colossus With so many multiplayer shooters getting a focus in this feature, it seemed high time to pay homage to one of the best single-player FPS games ever.
MachineGames gave Wolfenstein a bloody, alt-history revival in the form of 2014’s The New Order, so it had its work cut out for it when it came to bettering all that visceral Nazi slaying. Then along comes 2017’s, dialling up the violence and the depth of storytelling it would make most Call Of Duty titles look at the floor with embarrassment. What makes The New Colossus so essential is how it doesn’t deviate from its formula, but excels on it in almost every way. Bigger and more challenging bosses; intense set-pieces; myriad weapons that spit glorious death; a story that asks far more questions and presents some bold answers.
It’s also rock hard, and consistently unforgiving, so lock and load at your peril. Resident Evil 7: Biohazard It’s not often a franchise as iconic as Resident Evil gets a new lease of life - especially when you consider the zomb-loving licence had descended into a lifeless farce over the past decade – but here we are with a genuinely frightening horror game with the words ‘Resident Evil’ in the title. What a world, eh? While us PC folk aren’t allowed to scare ourselves half to death in VR yet (RE7 is a PSVR at the moment), that doesn’t mean it’s any less terrifying. Dropping the third-person perspective that’s felt tired and rote for many a year, RE7 embraces the first-person view that’s helped Outlast and the like re-energize the horror genre, and boy does it make for one chilling 8-10 hour scare fest.
With Capcom’s big budget, a creepy swamp setting (honestly, just go with it) and a storyline that feeds back into the series’ winding mythology, you’d be crazy not to add this to your Steam library. Sid Meier’s Civilization VI How could we put together a list of the games to play on Steam and not include the latest offering from the master of turn-based strategy and tactical simulation? The Civilization series has been through many a form over the years, but entry number six takes all the best bits from those previous incarnations, smoothes off the edges and serves up one of the most rewarding turn-based video games ever made. There’s nothing quite like building a nation from its fledgling roots and nurturing it into a cultural powerhouse, and gives you more freedom and control than ever. Removing the pre-set paths that hampered the still stellar Civ V, Civ VI transforms into a landscape that rewards plucky explorers and confident conquerors with the opportunity to expand their budding society with new technologies and alliances.
Sid Meier’s name alone is part of PC gaming’s lofty heritage, so owning this little doozy is a no-brainer. Undertale is one of those games that stays with you. A work of digital art whose charm and creativity never fail to lose their edge, regardless of how many times you play it through. And considering just how many innocuous JRPGs are out there right now, that’s a pretty impressive feat in unto itself. So why is Undertale so brilliant?
It takes all of the best elements from the ever-evolving RPG genre and creates a world built on choice, consequence and compassion. As a child dropped into an underground world filled with terrors, you’ll have to face many a monster to make it home. How you face them, and what choices you make, define your journey. And its Telltale-esque consequence system doesn’t just extend to dialogue choices – you can choose to spare monsters after a fight, forging potential vital alliances for later in the game. You can even end fights by telling your opponent jokes. It’s a game of such warm and affable quality you’d almost believe it was a JRPG from the earliest heydey of the genre.
Get it here: The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt For years, one game sat atop the dark and misty mountain of action-RPGs. Skyrim was its name, and no other franchise, be it Dragon Age or Dark Souls, could even come to close to unseating its cast-iron grip upon the genre. Then along came Geralt of Rivia, riding atop with a confident swagger, ready to give The Elder Scrolls a good thrashing. If you’re looking for a game that strikes a perfect balance between length of play (you could easily spend 100+ hours across its incredibly diverse map – one that’s a good 20% bigger than poor old Skyrim) and sheer quality, The Witcher 3 is a must. There are just so many virtues The Witcher 3 has to its name – brilliant writing, unforgettable quests, genuinely challenging beasts and a pair of DLC expansions (Hearts of Stone, and Blood and Wine) make this one of the best games of this and any other generation.
Inside will break you heart. Let that be your warning going in.
Don’t see such words as a deterrent, but rather as a mystery to be uncovered scene by heart-wrenching scene. Created by the same studio that made the wonderful 2.5D platformer Limbo – you know, the one about a little boy stuck in a nightmare world where a giant spider chases him endlessly – it should come as a huge shock to learn that Inside will leave you just as tearful as its predecessor. Thing is, Inside is a brilliant piece of art.
Without a scrap of dialogue, you’ll explore a world in a similar platforming vein to Limbo, overcoming various ingenious environmental puzzles and evading both the flashlights of an oppressive government and the shadow of a conspiracy that’s clearly not going to end well. But it’s worth every second. There’s a reason it won many a GOTY award in 2016, so you’d be a fool not to add this to Steam library. Just remember to pack a few tissues. Rocket League Once upon a time there was a little game on PlayStation 3 called Supersonic Acrobatic Rocket-Powered Battle-Cars. It was all about using remote control-esque cars to knock a giant football around a makeshift pitch. Thing is, no one played it and the game slowly faded into obscurity.
Then came along, which was basically the same thing, albeit with tweaked physics and a greater focus on multiplayer. One trip into PlayStation 4’s PS Plus lineup later and the game went supernova. And with good reason, too. It’s simple concept just works – it’s a place where skill shines through as you boost your little RC car and hit the motorised equivalent of a bicycle kick. It’s glorious, offering one of the best ways to play online (whether with friends or a bunch of randoms).
Come on, who doesn’t want to spend their evening chasing a football with a car? Portal 2 Portal, back in its day, was a game-changer. Sure, it sounds like we’re filling out boots with hyperbole, but back in 2007 all those portals, companion cubes and sociopathic AIs were blowing our minds on loop. Then Portal 2 came along and made the original look like a crossword puzzle in The Sun. Okay, the first Portal is still amazing, but took a genuinely revolutionary concept and redefined it. Everything in this game works perfectly - the ebb and flow of its story, the growing complexity of the puzzles and the new ways you’re forced to make your mind think with portals. It’s even got Stephen Merchant and JK Simmons in it!
Portal 2 manages to take a brilliant recipe and somehow make it even more delicious, sprinkling in all new depths of platforming and puzzle flavour. If you haven’t played it, buy it now. If you have, play it again. Get it here: Stardew Valley Charming indie farming RPG Stardew Valley sees you moving from the bustling city to your grandfather's old, run-down farm near sleepy Pelican Town. It's up to you to uncover the secrets of the mysterious town while growing a thriving farming empire. Stardew Valley's pixelated graphics, unique soundtrack and kooky characters make for a relaxed and fun game which combines elements such as farming simulation, adventure, dating simulation and crafting.
Get ready to become emotionally attached because once you step foot in Pelican Town, it's hard to ever leave. Get it here:. Want to get the best deals on Steam games?