I’m going to suggest using SteamDB’s categories of Free to Keep and Play for Free to avoid confusion about whether you keep the games
“Free to Keep” refers to games that Steam occasionally offers at no cost for a limited time. When you claim a Free to Keep game during its promotional period, it becomes a permanent part of your Steam library, exactly like a game you’ve purchased. You can download and play it whenever you want, even after the promotion ends.
A Play For Free event (sometimes called a “Free Weekend”) is when publishers make their games available to try for free for a limited time. During this period, you can download and play the game without purchasing it, giving you a chance to experience it before deciding whether to buy.
I’m thinking of something like this:
Classic Marathon
Steam
Free to Keep - unknown expiry (probably never)
I reluctantly made an Epic Games account because their storefront was the only one selling Alan Wake II, but it turns out their Steam-equivalent is fairly unobtrusive and they give out one or two free games literally every week, ranging from cute indy titles to big-budget AAA hits. Apparently the money they make from Fortnite enables them to lose money giving out other titles like candy. I’ve now got a whole secondary library of dozens of games just from checking them every week.
Good Old Games also gives away free games every so often if you have an account, though not nearly as often- maybe once a month or so. Annoyingly, they made it so claiming a game automatically changes your prefs to receive promotional emails, but you can grab the game and go into settings to turn them right back off. And even though their giveaways aren’t very frequent, there’s also a couple dozen free games you can access just from having an account, some of them quite good. They also have a Steam-like storefront/launcher, but it’s optional.
ETA: I may have misunderstood, maybe this thread is for specific deals rather than general advice? Still, hopefully what I wrote is useful for somebody.
You can get more games in GoG through Prime Gaming. They are very frequently on the list of free games, ditto Epic. Granted, that does require you to have Prime to claim them, but they remain licensed to you if you quit prime.
I actually have a Prime membership, somehow. I think someone signed me up for it in the early 2000s, and then it just… never expired? I don’t pay for it and Amazon doesn’t seem to notice. I try not to give them my business unless I can’t find something anywhere else (especially since I work in an independent bookstore), but thanks to my weird grandfathered-in access, I actually can make use of what you just mentioned, so thanks!
ETA: Or maybe not. Looking more closely, it seems like I get the Prime benefits for shipping, but when I try to access Prime gaming or video, it still treats it like I don’t have a Prime account. So I’m some sort of weird semi-Prime hybrid account.
I’d definitely recommend GoG over Epic, myself. At least GoG has a decent claim to a benefit over Steam, though their selection trends more towards nostalgia gaming.
I don’t exactly trust Steam, but Epic’s attempts to attack anything Steam does (while not actually being any better) and the reliance on “exclusives” just doesn’t sit right with me. And, of course, their history before attempting to split the market wasn’t exactly stellar.
For me the main problem with epic is that Tim sweeney has said again and again he doesn’t want Epic store to run on linux nor their games, and he actively hinders linux game development. The excuses are the usual (small userbase, etc), but i don’t want to put my money into a company that won’t run in my preferred platform.
If you don’t mind old games, most of the internet archive games section is (or at least was last time I checked) emulated and you can play directly on the browser.
Also there’s this interface if you want something nicer: https://dosdeck.com
There are lots of free games out there on Steam, GOG and Itch.io, but are they any good? This is a thread to sort the wheat from the chaff, and also call attention to short term free offers of pay for games. Free tabletop games are also welcome.
Please give links to the offer so we all know where it is.
If you like STALKER or spooky open-world games in general, there’s a comprehensive STALKER mod that’s available free. (There’s actually several, but this is the one I’ve played):
It’s incredibly complex and punishingly difficult, even compared to the already pretty brutal vanilla STALKER. But it’ll give you those Ukrainian game dev feelies in a good way, for no dollars (or roubles or hryvnia).
