Looking for the best free Steam games? I have to assume you are, given the headline on this article. Either that or you took a real weird turn on a hunt for a sauna. Anyway, a wise man once said, "the best things in life are free, the games belong to everyone, they Steam there for you and me." It made very little sense in 1927, but he was right. Steam has plenty of games on its platform that want your hard-earned dollars and cents, but some of the best and most popular games on there don't need a penny to play.
2025 games: Upcoming releases
Best PC games: All-time favorites
Free PC games: Freebie fest
Best FPS games: Finest gunplay
Best RPGs: Grand adventures
Best co-op games: Better together
These are the games you can install and start playing without spending a cent (or penny, or peso), and they're all right there on Steam, just waiting for you to grab 'em. To be honest, there are more than a few people out there who play games like this exclusively. That's why the end-of-year Steam stats always say the average number of games per player is, like, four, even while folks like me sit around with our ridiculous 1000+ game libraries.
I've divided this list into my personal top recommendations, the best free singleplayer Steam games, and the best free multiplayer Steam games. Some of them have microtransactions, in which case I've marked them with a tick, while others you couldn't spend money on even if you wanted to (those are marked with a cross).
Recent updates
I gave this list a complete overhaul in February 2025, simplifying the layout and more clearly indicating which games have microtransactions and which don't. I've added this year's best new favourites and remove some hoary old games that, sad as it is to say it, just don't measure up anymore.
My personal top recommendations
Before we hit the big lists, here are my personal top recommendations for the best free games on Steam—things I think everybody reading this should at least download and try.
The best free singleplayer Steam games
FleshBound
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Release: 2025 | Developer: Splatterpunk | Microtransactions: ❌
In a sentence: What if Mirror's Edge was gross?
The bigger picture: Spring, leap, and wall-run your way to the best time through tightly crafted levels, all while avoiding or killing the nightmarish grinning demons who dog your every step. It's fast-paced and will tax your reflexes, which either sounds great or like it will wreak havoc on your old man hands. Also, the whole world is made of flesh. That's an issue, sure.
The Murder of Sonic the Hedgehog
Release: 2023 | Developer: Sega | Microtransactions: ❌
In a sentence: Visual novel about investigating the murder (most foul) of Sega's mascot.
The bigger picture: Sonic the Hedgehog is dead. Murdered. And the culprit remains at large. Across a short, comedic visual novel that Sega dropped out of the blue for April Fool's Day 2023, your job is to catch the killer. Released as a joke, the game somehow became Sega's best-rated Sonic game on PC, and it's one of the best free Steam games you can play today.
Read more: Sega's April Fool's joke has become its best-rated Sonic game on PC
Fallout Shelter
Release: 2017 | Developer: Bethesda | Microtransactions: ✅
In a sentence: Run a post-apocalyptic, underground society—skills which may soon be transferrable to real life.
The bigger picture: Bethesda's enduringly popular Fallout spinoff sees you take on the role of Vault overseer, administrating the lives of tens or hundreds of vault-suited citizens as they live, love, and work in the post-apocalypse. Imagine the base-building from Firaxis' XCOM games, except you're building offices and creches to generate value and guide the next generation of vault-dwellers, and you're pretty much there.
Read more: The best way to watch the Fallout TV show is to play this building and management sim alongside it
The Looker
Release: 2022 | Developer: Subcreation Studio | Microtransactions: ❌
In a sentence: Like The Witness if it didn't feel like Jonathan Blow had you cornered at a party.
The bigger picture: The Looker is a very funny send-up of the philosophizing/navel-gazing in The Witness, with all the fun puzzles but none of the self-seriousness. You're alone on a mysterious island and have to solve your way off of it, all while listening to increasingly unhinged audio logs. It clocks in at about two hours and the puzzles are actually good. Worth your time if, like me, you eventually just played The Witness with the volume off.
Read more: The Looker is a free puzzle parody of other, much more serious, puzzlers
The Sims 4
Release: 2014 | Developer: Maxis | Microtransactions: ❌ (but there is loads of DLC)
In a sentence: Take better care of your fictional humans than you do of yourself.
The bigger picture: I mean, it's The Sims, so I'm betting you already have a pretty decent idea of what we're dealing with here. But if not, it's probably the most iconic life-simulator ever made, and it's now free-to-play. Try your hand at building a dream dollhouse/subjecting innocent virtual people to unimaginable horrors. Lead a life of crime, raise a family, or, yeah, just stick 'em all in the pool and take away the ladder. The possibilities really are endless. And hey, if honest living gets too much, why not check out our list of Sims 4 cheats?
Read more: The Sims 4 review
Emily is Away
Link: Steam
Release: 2015 | Developer: Kyle Seeley | Microtransactions: ❌
In a sentence: A branching narrative about the peak of the internet: mid-2000s AOL Messenger.
The bigger picture: Like a hyper-concentrated shot of nostalgia for a certain brand of wistful millennial, Emily Is Away is a game that takes place entirely in the confines of a faux-Windows XP desktop, as you chat with your fellow high school student Emily over instant messaging. The story can go in multiple directions, but remember: things don't always work out like you hope they will.
Read more: RIP, AIM: Remembering how we used to talk on the internet
Reverse: 1999
Release: 2024 | Developer: Bluepoch Games | Microtransactions: ✅
In a sentence: Absurdly gorgeous strategy-RPG filled with mystery boxes.
The bigger picture: A very, very pretty gacha game that plunges you back into the early 20th century. Engage in turn-based battles, become a bit too attached to anime people, listen to voice actors deliver lines like "It's the carbuncle that's parasitic on the dust," and pull the gacha lever for a literal dog. Can a game have everything? Reverse: 1999 aims to find out.
Trimps
Release: 2022 | Developer: Greensatellite | Microtransactions: ❌
In a sentence: What if an Excel sheet where the numbers kept getting higher were the most alarmingly compelling game of all time?
The bigger picture: Trimps is an idle game, like Cookie Clicker or AdVenture Capitalist, that is absolutely stuffed to the gills with nonsense for you to uncover. With nearly a decade of updates, the process of trapping your first trimp and sending it into battle soon blossoms into an obsessive level of strategy, customisation, and detail. Go for achievements, unlock perks, automate away the menial stuff. Think of it as a big engine that spits out bigger numbers that you can work on and tinker with until the end of time.
The best free multiplayer Steam games
SCP: Secret Laboratory
Release: 2017 | Developer: Northwood Studios | Microtransactions: ❌
In a sentence: Roleplaying horror survival that's chaotic, stressful and… fun?
The bigger picture: The SCP wiki is a collaborative creative writing project that documents the extensive collection of horrors housed in, well, pretty much the Bureau of Control (although really, Remedy was inspired by SCP rather than the other way around). Secret Lab puts you and your pals in the role of the hapless goons sent in to secure a containment breach, or it lets you play one of the imprisoned horrors trying to break out. Either way, it's not gonna go well for anyone, but maybe you can make it out alive?
Marvel Rivals
Release: 2024 | Developer: NetEase Games | Microtransactions: ✅
In a sentence: They made an Overwatch with Spider-Man in it.
The bigger picture: It's a team-based PvP hero shooter! No, not that one. Not that one either. This is the new hotness. It's a Marvel-based blaster out of NetEase that sets all your favourite characters to horribly murdering one another, and people are rather enjoying it. Our own Elie Gould called it "well-made hero shooter that is easy to enjoy," even if it does fall into some of the familiar balancing pitfalls of games like Overwatch.
Killer Instinct
Release: 2017 | Developer: Iron Galaxy | Microtransactions: ✅
In a sentence: A venerable old fighting game that can still show the new kids a thing or two.
The bigger picture: Fighting games feel like a bit of a rarity in the F2P zone, but Killer Instinct has been holding firm for over a decade now. Players praise its unique-feeling characters, fun artstyle, and—get this—netcode that doesn't leave them gnashing their teeth in frustration. I'm no fighting game expert, but I think that counts as a miracle.
Read more: A decade after launching as a free game on Xbox One, Killer Instinct is going free-to-play on PC
Counter-Strike 2
Release: 2012 | Developer: Valve | Microtransactions: ✅
In a sentence: The platonic ideal of multiplayer FPS games and consistently Steam's most-played game.
The bigger picture: Heck, man, it's Counter-Strike. If there were a Mount Rushmore of foundational shooters, this game would be in Washington's place. It's free, stuffed to the gills with over a decade of updates and content, and I'm not sure anyone's found the skill ceiling yet.
Plus, Valve recently did something ludicrous and unprecedented: It released a new game. Sort of. Counter-Strike 2 is here, and while it's built on CS:GO's foundations, it's brought all sorts of new tech to the venerable FPS, including the fluffiest smoke grenades you ever did see.
Read more: Exclusive interview: Valve on the future of Counter-Strike 2
Guild Wars 2
Release: 2022 | Developer: ArenaNet | Microtransactions: ✅
In a sentence: The only MMO whose community seems happy with it.
The bigger picture: Our best ongoing game of 2022 is free-to-play and going strong over ten years after release. An MMORPG with a vast open world and a dedicated community, Guild Wars 2 offers character customisation, a whole bunch of professions (or classes, to you and me), and rich PvP. It's still getting frequent updates and expansions, too, though you'll have to pay for the latter (sorry!).
Sven Co-op
Release: 1999 | Developer: Sven Co-op team | Microtransactions: ❌
In a sentence: What if Gordon Freeman had friends?
The bigger picture: A co-op mod for Half-Life 1 that eventually got Valve's blessing for a Steam release, Sven Co-op sees you and a pal blast your way through familiar Half-Life enemies and locations as you solve puzzles, watch each other's backs, and try desperately not to die. It's tough, too, with the difficulty of OG Half-Life tuned up to make it better suited to team play. Oh, and it first came out in 1999 and is still getting updates today.
Puck
Release: 2025 | Developer: Nils Asejevs | Microtransactions: ✅
In a sentence: Hockey with the fat trimmed out.
The bigger picture: What if you boiled an entire sport down into its best part: the tense goal-scoring? This is the question Puck is daring enough to ask, presenting a physics-y ice hockey game that's all about the goals. There are no rules and there's no whistle. Your goal is to whack the disc with your stick by any means necessary. Good luck, hockey soldier.
Path of Exile
Release: 2013 | Developer: Grinding Gear Games | Microtransactions: ✅
In a sentence: What if Diablo's skill tree caused vertigo?
The bigger picture: Path of Exile is one of the deepest action RPGs on the market, and one of the most generous. The basic structure is, well, Diablo: pick a class and kill everything to earn loot and level up. But what makes it truly special is the buildcrafting: there's a huge amount of class and item customisation to dig into as you start to move past the tutorial stages. Slot different patterns of gems into your armour sets to min-max your character and take them into even tougher dungeons. You only need to pay money for cosmetics that reskin your weapons and armour.
Read more: A beginner's guide to Path of Exile, a dense, complicated, but rewarding ARPG
The Finals
Release: 2023 | Developer: Embark Studios | Microtransactions: ✅
In a sentence: When in doubt, level the whole building.
The bigger picture: The Finals is a chaotic, calamitous, team-based multiplayer shooter that sees squads of three vie to amass as much as cash as possible. It can be pretty sweaty: a high time-to-kill and the brittleness of its lighter classes demands you either stick to your squad or play very well indeed to rack up a killcount, but don't worry: it also contains perhaps the highest potential for sheer, unbridled madness I've ever seen in a multiplayer FPS.
Why? Because every building in The Finals' myriad levels is gloriously destructible. Grenades, C4, rocket launchers and plenty else besides will make roofs collapse, floors give away, and walls fall in. Got an enemy squad setting up an ambush on the floor above? Bring them down to your level with well placed explosive charge. Or just flip the whole Monopoly board by turning an entire building to rubble. It's great fun even if, like me, you aren't brilliant at the game.
Read more: The Finals players are tormenting each other with the unexpected power of the Goo Gun
