There are really good Free2Play games out there – but these ten games are definitely not among them. There are a lot of questionable games on Steam, so you should avoid the following ones.
Welcome to Steam's Free2Play hell
Welcome to Free2Play hell. Every video game store has that place between the cabinet of curiosities and the backyard clinic where you can sell your kidney. The hurdle for a developer to be able to offer a game in the Steam store is not particularly high. As these 10 examples show, you don't even need working gameplay for you to find it in the store. A name and something to download are completely sufficient.
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In Steam's Free2Play category you will find sexism, rip-offs and cheap copies. In the end there are always two questions: Who develops something like that and, more importantly, who plays something like that?
Let's just get in. In Click Space Miner 2 you click on planets in space to mine resources there. This allows you to build upgrades so that you can click even faster. Complete. The game doesn't actually hurt anyone if it weren't for the cheeky microtransactions. You can purchase currency that you can then use to pay for upgrades, making the game's only mechanic obsolete. Or you can get the Deluxe Edition for 2.39 euros, which is the only way to get rid of the advertising within the game.
Who could have expected that the combination of complicated mathematics and first-person shooter would backfire? To progress in Project Skylab, you shoot your way through hordes of robots and solve math problems. Even if you like complex algebra, the game is so buggy that it's barely playable. However, there are two sequels that can at least be played.
As an astronaut stranded on a planet, try to find your comrades. Due to the low gravity, you drag yourself to signals on your HUD, only to realize that there is absolutely nothing there. So after walking straight ahead at a snail's pace for minutes, there's just nothing there. The biggest highlight is meteorite impacts, which allow you to start over if they hit you. In the Free2Play version you can only choose the moon, but for 3 euros you can't do anything on Mars.
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This game is based on Crossout, just not enough. It is a multiplayer game in which you compete against other players with armed cars you have built yourself. Unfortunately, there are no other players and you can only drive around in the test level. Building the cars will be fun, at least for a short time. The editor and the physics of the game have nothing to do with each other. So you build a 10 m long chassis with 80 tires on it, put a driver's cab and a machine gun on it and watch your abnormality glide through the garage. This is funny – for ten minutes.
If you get this game to work, the in-game shop will be over at the latest. Almost everything in Cannons Lasers Rockets costs money. Players who have actually seen gameplay report lag, bugs, crappy graphics, and one of the worst gaming experiences of their lives. It's questionable why this game is still available on Steam.
Aerial Guardian temporarily held the record for the worst rated shooter on Steam. A remarkable achievement for a game that almost a hundred people actually played. Aside from poor graphics, barely functioning controls and countless bugs, there is at least no aggressive in-game shop. That's a plus, somehow.
There are a lot of Counter-Strike clones out there and most of them are bad. But still better than Warmode. In addition to the heavy input delay, the FPS also tend to fall into the ground when a firefight breaks out. In addition, you can buy new weapons in the shop, which can also be earned, but you don't have the opportunity to do so. Hackers rule the game. There's no need for the little man's Counter-Strike since CS:GO is already Free2Play.
The port of an Asian auto-play MMO opens via its own browser. If that isn't a red flag for you, the game is full of bugs. But you'll only see them if the game doesn't crash. Most crashes supposedly happen when the game opens the in-game shop window where you can buy currencies, VIP access and other stuff. It almost seems like the game is a bit ashamed of itself.
This game is suggested to you if you like playing Left 4 Dead and nothing could be further from the truth. Infestation: Survivor Stories was initially a paid game and, according to many reviews, the reason why Steam introduced an exchange function. In fact, it is the game in this list with the most reviews in which users actively advise against playing. Microtransactions, poor gameplay, bugs and developers not caring about players are the reasons to avoid this game.
League of Maidens represents something that doesn't quite deserve the name genre. In this action RPG, women with proportions that would give an orthopedist a heart attack perform tasks. There is shooting and throwing around with superpowers. The character editor offers everything a misogynist heart desires, of course only for the investment of real money. The game is no more afraid of aggressive monetization than it is of crude nudity. There are all the bad things in one game: loot boxes, premium subscriptions, battle passes and a stamina system that slows down progress. Of course, crowned by sexism, the worst kind.
This list could go on forever. There are a lot of Free2Play games on Steam alone that are neither free nor really playable. In fact, even the term video game is debatable for some. If disaster tourism drives you into one of these games, be warned. Most of these games primarily want to grab your wallet.
Maybe you'd rather take a few euros in your hand and catch up on some games from this list: Top 10: The best games released in 2020.