The best free-to-play games

Alto’s Odyssey

If you liked Alto’s Adventure, you’ll love Alto’s Odyssey. The sequel to Snowman’s endless runner — sorry, endless snowboarder — is a stylish and highly-addictive sandboarding game with multiple biomes to discover. Just like the original, your goal is to ride for as long as possible while avoiding rocks, completing tasks and racking up high scores with a mixture of backflips and death-defying grinds. Odyssey introduces a new move, wall rides, that serve as both a gnarly trick and traversal mechanic for reaching higher lines. It’s a welcome addition to an already stellar iOS and Android game. NS

Doki Doki Literature Club

Doki Doki Literature Club looks like any other dating sim. It plays like any other dating sim. Until it doesn’t, and then you’re rocking yourself to sleep and trying to get images of damaged schoolgirls out of your head. There’s a creeping sense that something is terribly wrong and even though we’ve already spoiled one of the major twists — that this supposedly innocent story of a bunch of book-loving teens is, in fact, a horror title — you’ll still find yourself dreading every new development and wondering what the game will do to them (and you) next. KN

Dota 2

Dota 2 has one of the steepest learning curves of any game. Only after sinking hundreds upon hundreds of hours into the five-on-five MOBA can you even begin to understand the deep game mechanics, 100+ unique characters and team strategies. But the fact Dota 2 is so challenging makes those big plays and hard-fought victories all the more satisfying. The sky-high skill ceiling means there’s always something to learn, and if you eventually make it into the pro ranks, one tournament win can turn you into an overnight millionaire. JR

Eve Online

Eve Online proves there’s a game for everyone, even fans of dynamic spreadsheeting. OK, that take might be a little stale, but it’s a testament to Eve Online‘s incredible staying power — this interstellar MMO has been around since 2003 and still supports a robust, active audience. Eve Online is much more than an economic and inventory-management simulator, with layers of player-on-player subterfuge, collaboration and scheming. There’s a robust economy here, too, and epic space battles where players can lose billions in a single click. High stakes, high reward. JC

Fallout Shelter

Fallout Shelter takes the popular action RPG series and transforms it into… a game that doesn’t have very much role-playing. And a very different kind of “action.” This mobile sim places you in charge of a vault — you know, one of those places you usually have to leave before your regular game of Fallout gets exciting and dangerous. If you’ve ever wondered what it was like to live in one of those vaults, turns out it’s lots of resource management, real estate and uh, eugenics, as you get to pair off your workers and hope their induced union will produce an even better worker to run your plants, do research and fight off the occasional giant rat. KN

Fortnite Battle Royale

Fortnite is a cultural phenomenon. It’s responsible for popularizing a new shooting-game genre and doing it in a way that has millions playing across mobile, PC and games consoles, like the Switch — you’ll see this particular game appear in several of our lists. It all started with a simple idea: survive. (Actually it started with a tower-defense-esque game where you built a fort to protect human survivors against zombies, but hey, it evolved.) Fortnite has a low barrier to entry (it’s free!), and the sheer momentum behind the fact that everyone is playing it makes resistance futile. Parachute into the field, grab supplies, guns and ammo, build some defensive protections if you like and make it to the end. Sounds simple, but the best game ideas are. PUBG, Apex and the rest have a tough fight on their hands. MS

Hearthstone

Understanding the basics of Blizzard’s collectible card game Hearthstone takes just a few minutes, but don’t let the pick up and play simplicity fool you. The strategic depth of the Warcraft-themed title is one of the reasons it still has a thriving casual community and potent competitive scene five years after launch. Blizzard continues to update the game with new cards, balance tweaks and single-player campaigns that are enjoyable alternatives to the standard one-on-one showdowns. Though players can spend money to grow their card collection, the game is generous when it comes to free booster packs, and there isn’t a single card that can’t be unlocked, one way or another, for free. JR

League of Legends

League of Legends represents one of the most exciting landscapes in gaming today. On top of supporting a monthly player base of roughly 100 million people, League is the most popular esports scene in the world. When you’re not watching pro matches, LoL itself is perfect for all-night gaming sessions, playing with a team of friends or solo. There are a few different roles to best match your preferred play style, and Riot Games consistently rolls out updates, new champions and visual upgrades. Plus, the studio has built a character roster 143 deep (and counting). JC

Pokémon Go

When Pokémon Go launched in 2016, there were some obvious omissions, such as trading and player-versus-player trainer battles. In early 2019? Almost every problem and missing feature has been addressed. The game isn’t perfect, but the fundamentals — walking around outside, spinning Pokéstop signs and catching critters — make this a truly unique and health-beneficial experience for Pokemon fans. The daily “research” quests and timed events, which boost the appearance of certain monsters, are a great excuse to log in every day. Niantic is slowly expanding the Pokédex, too, so that your collection is never quite finished. NS

Spaceplan Prototype

Do you like space? Do you like potatoes? Do you like extremely strange games? If you answered yes to all three of those, boy do we have the game for you. Spaceplan Prototype is an intensely strange idle game with a twist. Like most idle games — or clickers, as you might know them by — gameplay comes down to clicking buttons to unlock things to click more buttons to unlock more buttons to — you get the point, it’s not exactly Tri-D Chess. Where it’s unique is in its story and lore, which is about humanity, life, love, death and… potatoes. Lots of potatoes.

Honestly, we’d tell you more, but it’s free, and we don’t want to spoil it for you. If you do enjoy it, though, we’ll point you in the direction of the $3 full game, which is available for PC, Android and iOS. AS

Contributors: Jessica Conditt (JC), Kris Naudus (KN), Jamie Rigg (JR), Mat Smith (MS), Aaron Souppouris (AS), Nick Summers (NS).

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