The Best Free PC Games 2013 Edition

It might be nearly two full months until Christmas but you don’t need to wait until then to treat yourself to a game-shaped bundle of joy. Here today we present to you some of the best games you can play on PC now, without spending a penny.

The run up to the holiday season is perilously expensive on a gamer’s wallet, as stacks of AAA titles line up, jousting for interest amid their eye-gouging price tags. It’s by no means the cheapest time of year, so leading up to the holidays you can be forgiven for looking out for a gaming bargain, and none come higher recommended than these freebies...

So without further ado, here's part one of our Best Free Pc Games 2013 Edition!

Planetside 2 - When the original Planetside landed it made waves for its absolutely massive worlds and a player count to pitch, pitching thousands of players against each other server wide in incredible continental battles. Planetside 2 took all that made that game so great but expanded it to even larger proportions, and whacked a great big ‘FREE’ sticker on it for good measure.

This is a technically astounding and epic scale multiplayer warfare experience that makes Battlefield 4 look as ambitious as Pong, pitting three warring races against each other in vehicular and foot based combat that will blow your mind. Mixing together the best of FPS gameplay with the best MMOs, this is a hugely addictive title that’ll have you playing for months thanks to its constantly updated gameplay and sheer wealth of mechanics.

Beneath A Steel Sky - Pixel hunting perfection beamed onto PCs straight from the heart of the golden era of adventure gaming. Yes, we’re talking about the mid-90s. It was a glorious time to be an adventure gamer, from Monkey Island to Full Throttle, from Sam & Max to Simon the Sorceror. Beneath a Steel Sky was exactly one such title, a darkly humourous tale set in a dystopian future where Earth has been all but wiped out by pollution and nuclear fallout.

Resolutely old-school and always hilarious, this is a creative and compelling cyberpunk tale that upon revisiting is most definitely like a fine wine. Hint - it doesn’t taste like vinegar. Brought to you by famous adventure game designer Charles Cecil, this is one game not to be missed if you have an interest in the genre. Best of all of course, it went completely freeware in 2003 and is available right now for princely sum of zero pennies over at Good Old Games.

Spelunky - The absolutely scourge of many an office monkey’s lunch break, Spelunkyis sheer masochistic heaven, tasking you with doing the seemingly impossible. You’ll die. Lots. But you’ll keep coming back for more. This impossibly addictive rogue-like mining experience is a game that offers more replayability than any big-budget title, every time you have a go something will surprise you or you’ll learn a new way to achieve your goal.

A simple game at heart, this is both madly brilliant and abusively cruel, but you won’t be able to resist crawling back to its embrace and having just one more go. There’s so much to learn contained within Spelunky’s mineshaft that you’ll have to return hundreds of times to see really how far this particular rabbit hole goes. There’s a freeware version downloadable as well as a browser based version, so be sure to drop on in for a game of Spelunky, but you have been warned how maddenly addictive this little blighter can be… 

Hidden & Dangerous Deluxe - Calling Hidden and Dangerous a little rough around the edges is a little like saying Clark Kent mildly enjoys spandex underwear. It’s been some time since anyone here at GD has played Hidden and Dangerous so bear in mind this is one title that may have you question whether you’ve accidentally sandpapered your eyeballs. Nevertheless this is a quality little title that gives a great impression of squad-based combat deep behind enemy lines.

Huge, varied, unique, and immensely challenging, this is as satisfying experience as it comes when everything somehow manages to be pulled off correctly. The closest thing it could be equated to is a 3D version of ultra-hard strategy classic Commandos, dropping you in behind enemy lines against preposterously accurate German soldiers. If you’ve got patience by the bucketload then this can be the ultimate hardcore squad-shooter experience, without spending a penny.

The Lord Of The Rings Online - Originally launching as a fully-fledged monthly subscription service, The Lord of the Rings Online stands out as one of the single most complete MMO experiences you can have for free. Starting from the shires of Hobbiton and taking in Rohan, Mordor and more, this is the ultimate Middle Earth experience. Very much a traditional MMORPG experience, Lord of the Rings Online is an experience polished to within an inch of its life.

While the majority of the game is available to you there are additional packs you can buy to breathe a bit more life into the content, such as huge quest packs and additional dungeons, as well as fully-fledged expansion packs. Despite this it’s one of the best implementations of the free to play ideas that we’ve seen yet, giving away a huge amount of content for very little in return, with the option always there if you want to get a bit more stuck into Middle Earth.

Source: game-debate.com