Free PC game and free weekend notification thread

The original splinter cell is free on uplay.

Rainbow 6: Siege free weekend on steam. It’s a really good game.

Didn’t notice it before, but Ark: Surivval Evolved is also on a free weekend.

Depth, a sharks vs divers asymetric PVP game, and Dead By Daylight, a 1v4 serial killer / escaping victims stalking game are both free weekends on steam. Strangely enough Dead by Daylight isn’t mentioned on the front page, but the game’s page lets you download it.

I’ll be trying to organize some games of Dead by Daylight this weekend, it’s definitely one I was interested in. Depth is pretty good too but we’ve played that before in another free weekend.

Also Rayman Origins is free to keep on Uplay if you “order” it in the next month or so.

Tropico 4 is free to keep if you redeem it in the next 44 hours or so.

Thanks, it looks interesting.

How was Dead by Daylight? I’ve been playing Damned with the family, which is pretty fun, if not the most polished game I’ve ever seen.

There’s a good game in there, but it could use some balance and polish. The progression system makes it so that you get significant perks after playing hte game for a while which puts new players at a disadvantage, and I hate that sort of game design. The matchmaking isn’t that well balanced so you can get pretty screwed by it. And there’s some balance issues - part of the core mechanics are that the killer has to put people on some meat hooks and wait for them to die, while their teammates can try to mount a rescue. But there’s not enough of a tradeoff in having the killer just camp the guy until he’s dead - the killer should have to balance the risks of losing that kill vs the survivors significantly advancing towards their objectives, but the survivors can’t make that much progress in that time, so the choice seems to be to just camp the meathooks, which makes the game a lot simpler and more boring. There are all sorts of potential fixes for this - longer meathook time, or giving the survivors a noisy but fast way to repair generators which gives away their position and punishes the killer if he camps the meathooks. Stuff like that.

But the fundamental stealth mechanics are really good, the chasing works well, the game builds legitimate tension. I’m tempted to play it from time to time even though I didn’t grab it. There’s a Friday the 13th game coming out in a couple of months with the same 1v4 stalking premise, so I was going to wait to see which one turned out better. The Friday the 13th game looked more polished, but also looks like it may be dumbed down for … other platforms, with features like highlighting the enemy players when you catch a glimpse of them rather than the much better designed stealth system in DBD where you actually have to see someone hiding.

I’d say wait for the other game to come out, and by then DBD will probably have a $10-12 sale anyway, and get whichever one is better.

Dead by Daylight is fun but it’s also pretty limited. I played it during the beta and had fun and played it again during the free weekend and had fun. But I never felt like it was something I needed to buy or something my friends and I would be playing regularly. Unless you think you’re going to want to play the public matches, you’re probably best off waiting for a bundle or deep sale. For myself, half the fun is talking to friends while I’m playing it so public matches aren’t a draw for me.

The Crew is the free game this month from Uplay. You have 30 days to grab it and it’s yours to keep.

Of Guards and Thieves has a free weekend. It’s a multiplayer top-down stealth game. Never tried it but had my eye on it. The free weekend is actually done through the download demo button - I guess the demo version lets you play online but with restricted functionality (limited classes and other stuff) but for the free weekend the demo version has all restrictions unlocked. I might try to organize a game sometime if I can pull myself away from BF1.

For the next 40 hours or so, [Dirt 3](dirt 3 is totally free on the humble store, it’s a good game The Humble Store: Great games. Fantastic prices. Support charity.) is free, requires the creation of a humble store account.

For the rest of the month (I think), Far Cry: Blood Dragon is free on u-play.

And for a free weekend is Squad, a hardcore military sim shooter made by the people who did Battlefield 2: Project Reality.

Thanks very much for these links.

Is it like a more user-friendly ARMA 3?

Outstanding! Far Cry: Blood Dragon was a delightful, hilarious romp with all the solid gameplay from Far Cry 3. Highly recommended to people who haven’t played it yet. Tons of fun.

Streamline is free if you install it in the next 24 hours (I don’t think you actually have to install it, just click the install button so it gets registered to your account). I don’t know if it’s any good - reviews are decent - looks like a simple game where you chase around your friends. Price is right. Apparently requires a twitch account to play, it’s designed to be heavily twitch integrated.

ubisoft is giving away one game for free each day for the next month, although I’m at their website logged in and having trouble finding details of what game is available today. It looks like some days they’re only giving away a limited number; maybe that’s the deal today, or maybe I’m just tired and missing something obvious :).

Wait–here we go. Today the giveaway is Rayman Classic for mobile devices. I just started downloading it for my iphone, no need to log in through uplay.

Today’s ubisoft giveaway is a zip file full of jpeg posters for their games. BOOOOO!

Supposedly this is the list of rewards (been accurate so far):

1: Rayman Classic on mobiles
2: 30% off selected Ubisoft games
3: Exclusive Collection of E3 2016 Cards
4: UBI30 Logo Animation Exclusive GIF
5: For Honor GIFs
6: UBI30 360 Images
7: Just Dance Greeting Card
8: Ubisoft DIY Paper Advent Calendar
9: Steep Wallpaper
10: Exclusive Digital Posters from E3 2016
11: Rabbids Holiday Goodies
12: WWW Wallpaper
13: Ubisoft Cocktails Recipes
14: Assassin’s Creed 3 on PC
15: Ubisoft Wrapping Paper
16: 300 Game Giveaway
17: Watch_Dogs 2 Wallpaper
18: Ubisoft Gift Tags
19: Ubisoft Dessert Recipes
20: Ghost Recon GIFs
21: Wallpaper for Mobile
22: Prince of Persia on PC
23: Rayman Legends on PC
24: Splinter Cell on PC
25: The Crew on PC
26: Rayman GIF
27: Steep GIF
28: Exclusive 2017 Digital Holiday Cards
29: Ubi30 Wallpaper
30: Ubisoft Holiday Decorations

Mostly pretty lame stuff aside from AC3 and the repeated Ubi Monthly giveway games if you missed them (Crew, Prince of Persia, etc). Was hoping to at least get some weapon skins for Division, R6 Siege, etc like the Uplay rewards stuff.