The 101 Best Free PC Games

Looking for the best free PC game? Whether you're broke or just frugal, free is a price point that appeals to everybody's purse. We've collated the 100 top free PC games guaranteed to deliver a near endless stream of complementary entertainment. All you need to spend here is your time.
Update! We've had a little tinker with the list and added a particular little action RPG that was shamefully missed off. Please forgive us!

Note: Some of the games mentioned in this feature include affiliate links. Clicking on these links directly supports PCGamesN

World of Tanks
One of mightiest free-to-play games there has ever been, World of Tanks is an accessible and exciting tank simulator that hides some complex game mechanics. It pits two sets of tankers against each other in team deathmatch. There are hundreds of vehicles to unlock across ten different tiers, from speedy scouts to hulking heavies. You’ll never believe so many tanks existed.
PLAY WORLD OF TANKS 

War Thunder

A massively multiplayer World War 2 combat game that effortlessly encompasses all of the explosions and excitement that tanks and planes are capable of generating. War Thunder's recent updates lavish the fast-paced battler with dozens of new vehicles and game modes. It's a free to play gem.
TRY WAR THUNDER

Marvel Heroes 2015

Gazillion’s superhero MMO, has improved massively since it launched in 2013. The revised game, from Diablo’s creator David Brevik, is a lot of fun and one of the most played games on Steam. You can play as all your Marvel favourites and the game does a neat job of keeping up with updates in the Marvel universe with new content around stuff like the Age of Ultron movie release and the Netflix Daredevil show (pictured above)
TRY MARVEL HEROES 2015

Magicka Wizard Wars

New entry into our list, this is absurd. Absolutely raving bonkers. A wizard-focused action RPG where spells fly faster than bullets. Mulitplayer fun where sizzling fireballs and searing beams slicing through friend and foe alike.
TRY MAGICKA: WIZARD WARS
 

Nosgoth

A free to play combat game set in the Legacy of Kain universe, Nosgoth pits vampires against vampire hunters in tight deathmatch arenas. Asymmetrical abilities and diverse tactics keep the action as sharp as the bloodsuckers' pointy fangs.
TRY NOSGOTH

Star Wars: The Old Republic
After a long, slow start, SWTOR is now actually pretty good. It’s a fast-paced Star Wars RPG with lightsabers and space combat and Jedi houses and bounty hunters and, if you go full dark side, you can fire lightning from your fingertips. Really.
TRY SWTOR
 

Smite

Following the same formula as League of Legends and Dota 2, Smite has teams of five gods trying to fight their way into their opponent’s base. Rather than giving players a top-down view of the battlefield, it chooses a third-person perspective, switching the focus of the game from tactics to action.
TRY SMITE

Warframe

Everything’s better in space, as Warframe proves with its Ninjas in space theme. It’s a co-op third-person game where teams of ninjas suited up in powerful ‘Warframe’ armours head out to slice up bad guys, or just hang out at the dojo. It blends some MMO elements with the sensibilities of a more straight-forward action game, creating something slick, exciting, and very sociable.
TRY WARFRAME

Hex: Shards of Fate

At its heart, Hex is a two player card game. Hex’s rules are a little more complex than Hearthstone’s but we found it to be a more rewarding game. Both players have 20 health and draw cards from their decks to summon creatures and cast spells against each other. The spells and creatures can weave their abilities together to make powerful combinations. Hex is in free open beta right now, and with hundreds of different cards available, players are still finding new ways to combine them.
TRY HEX

League of Legends

Inspired by the original Dota, this takes the same concept but introduces a different roster of playable characters that is constantly being expanded. Many players find League of Legends is both easier and more accessible than Dota, but it’s still extremely nuanced. 12 million players play it every day. You won’t struggle to find a game.
TRY LEAGUE OF LEGENDS
 

Star Trek Online

Who wouldn’t want to take control of a starship, explore the fringes of the galaxy, battle dangerous aliens and train an elite crew of pangalactic professionals? This is your chance to show the internet that you’d make a much better Picard than Picard. Or, at least, than they do.

TRY STAR TREK ONLINE

Path of Exile
An action RPG in the mould of Diablo, Path of Exile is one of the most polished, well-executed games on this list. Adventure with a friend or two through hundreds of areas in a dark fantasy world that provides a dizzying collection of monsters to repeatedly click on until they squish. Path of Exile does feature a microtransaction system but it’s admirably unobtrusive and ethical.
TRY PATH OF EXILE

Lord of the Rings Online

Turbine’s free to play MMO is the third most popular in the world, depending on who you ask, and it’s all because they ditched the subscription model and went full throttle towards a cash-free future. The LOTRO Store is where premium players can drop pennies, but otherwise frugal adventurers can lose themselves in Middle-earth just as easily.

TRY LORD OF THE RINGS ONLINE

Team Fortress 2

Valve’s class-based shooter has achieved legendary status thanks to its varied game modes, impeccable sense of fun, and being home to more hats than the world’s millinery stores combined. The whole game is free to play these days, from the standard shoot-everything-that-moves deathmatches to the fantastic Mann vs Machine co-op mode where teams fend off waves of robots.
TRY TEAM FORTRESS 2

ArcheAge

A free to play pirate fantasy MMORPG that lets you tool around on magic boats with other players, getting into online scrapes and ending up in virtual courtrooms, pleading your innocence to a jury of your peers.
TRY ARCHEAGE
 

Hearthstone 

Blizzard's world dominating card game is about as addictive as chips. Who's ever had enough chips? You've always got room for more chips, and you've always got time for another game of Hearthstone.
TRY HEARTHSTONE
 

Firefall

The ex-Blizzard lot at Red 5 done good, pulling together to create a kinetic and skill based third-person shooter-y sort of MMO. An intensely fun blend of PvP and RPG exploration that continues to go from strength to strength.
TRY FIREFALL
 

Planetside 2

Battle has never been so big. Imagine entire continents at war, with tanks, trucks and fighter craft alongside hordes of infantry. Throw that into the far future and you’ve got Planetside 2, a never-ending conflict on an incredible scale that’s pretty damn good looking to boot. There is nothing else quite like this out there.
TRY PLANETSIDE 2
 

Rift

Rift was a phenomenal subscription based fantasy MMO - World of Warcraft in new trousers, essentially. It made its name by updating and improving itself at a ferocious pace: with new raids, new zones, new world events appearing on a monthly basis. Now, it's entirely free-to-play: you can play it without spending a penny. It's a brilliant option: you can sink hours into it. Highly recommended.
TRY RIFT

Battlefield 1942

This was the game that the entire Battlefield series: a World War 2 first-person FPS that demonstrated tanks and planes and submarines and everything in between belonged in our deathmatch arenas. It may look dated now, but it’s still a fine example of World War 2 shootery, so take another tour of duty.
TRY BATTLEFIELD 1942

Mechwarrior Online

Pledge your loyalty to a great house or sign up for a mercenary company in this mech simulation. Whether you’re piloting a light or heavy mech, you’ll have to manage your weaponry and keep an eye on your system temperature. In the Mechwarrior universe, piloting a giant robot can be a technical and rather nuanced occupation. There is also stomping.
TRY MECHARRIOR ONLINE

 

Tribes: Ascend

Tribes is probably the fastest FPS in the world. It’s set across huge levels of open valleys and leafy forests: you zip through them by skiing down mountains and jetting up hillsides. Just be aware that success comes from both ultra-fast reactions and clever teamwork.
TRY TRIBES: ASCEND

Warface

Warface is a fast action military shooter: but less concerned with realism than it’s po-faced peers. Warfare wants you to do two things: co-operate with your team in fast urban deathmatches. And slide along on your arse while firing a machine gun.
TRY WARFACE

World of Warplanes 

Seize the free-to-play concepts behind World of Tanks, take them to the skies and you have World of Warplanes, a game of whirling dogfights and nail-biting bombing runs for teams of jet bombers and biplanes alike. Sure, it’s still in beta, but it’s getting sleeker and shinier with every release.
WORLD OF WARPLANES


Black Mesa
It took nearly a decade, but it’s a now a real thing: Black Mesa is what happens when a mod team decides to recreate the original Half-Life in the Half-Life 2 engine. The result was a faithful and quite brilliant representation with a few new flourishes and without any of that Xen nonsense at the end. Link


Star Conflict
Take your dogfighting to the stars with this scifi take on fighter combat. Star Conflict gives you a hangar’s worth of gorgeous starships to launch into battle. Combat takes place in asteroid fields or high above distant worlds and the lasers fly hot, free and fast. Link

Heroes & Generals
Do you want to shoot all the guns and make all the decisions? War isn’t all about what happens on the front line, but nor is it about the decisions made back at headquarters, so Heroes & Generals is the perfect game for players who want to try a bit of both. Link

Runescape
Runescape holds the record for being the largest MMORPG ever, as well as for being the most updated game. Runescape has an enormous player base and a massive, ever evolving world to explore, full of challenges that you can choose according to your own interests. Want to fight, to complete quests or just to play minigames? In Runescape it’s entirely up to you. Link

Realm of the Mad God
A massively multiplayer top-down semi-twin stick shooter, this is all about you and your buddies filling the screen with bullets as you work together to blast your way through an increasingly challenging host of horrors, before facing down the final foe in his evil lair. Unlike many MMOs, character death here is permanent, so watch your step.

D&D Online
Do you want a chance to adventure in some of the most famous fantasy worlds there ever were? With D&D Online you can set foot in the Forgotten Realms and the land of Eberron, stepping into the well-worn boots of a thief or a spellcaster as you fight dragons and demons. It’s not often you get high fantasy for free.

RaiderZ
RaiderZ is an MMO with an unusual take on combat. You you directly control your character swipes and wings: you’re not simply pointing and clicking. It’s entirely down to you whether you roll out of the way of an enemy swing, or whether you jump past a monster’s defences to inflict that critical blow. It is good.

Dota 2
Two teams of five choose their heroes from a selection of hundreds, before taking to the battlefield to destroy the other side’s base. It’s no mean feat, as both bases spawn waves of creatures and are protected by powerful towers. Each player will need to make the best of their hero’s abilities in what is not only a game, but a sport. It’s tough, complex and it inspires fanaticism in its fans.