The point was that many free games offer optional purchases – more costumes, larger bags, unlocking a new class, etc.
If you’re refusing any free games that include even optional microtransactions, you’re probably going to be scraping the barrel.
If cost is a barrier, I would suggest subscribing to this thread where opportunities to get free games are posted. The games that come up might not fit your other criteria but at least they won’t cost you anything.
You could wait for free trials which sometimes pop up on Steam. There must be a menu or website* which alerts you when a game is playable for free on Steam.
Other than that, you won’t find much in the way of decent games which are completely free. From the developers’ point of view, what kind of business plan would allow that?
The only two ways I know to discover whether or not a genre is for you for free involves abandonware or five-finger discounts.
*ETA: Or thread, as Jophiel helpfully points out.
Or On the House games at Origin, which can be downloaded at no charge and played for free at any time.
Open source games tend to be free. Here are a couple “best of” lists:
Yeah–the business model that says, “Put tens of thousands of hours into a game, release for free…profit” is a pretty fancy model.
Some publishers occasionally release old games for free, basically as an ad for a new game. I’m not sure how well it works, but they’ll do it. (I’m currently playing Black Sails, the Assassins Creed title, which I got for free through this method, and having a blast). Some games, like Path of Exile, are free except that you can pay for add-ons. And some flash games are pretty shitty but free all around, because instead of having tens of thousands of hours of labor put into them, they’ve got a hundred or so hours.
But I’m not familiar with a really good game that’s reliably free and doesn’t have freemium aspects to it.
I did download Dragon Age Origins for free back when it was offered, but I just couldn’t get into it. That’s a key reason why I said “simple plot, simple language.” If less than half of my time is spent playing the game, I get turned off pretty quick. And when buckets of tutorials are thrown at me before I have any engagement, I also lose interest.
Is there something closer to Ocarina of Time, only more RPG-like? Start small, get me hooked, then gradually add elements.
Path of Exile is gonna be your closest bet–have you looked into it? The only things available for purchase are purely aesthetic. I put in a few dozen hours without ever being tempted to shell out for it.
If you’re not willing to even consider freemium models, and you want something on the triple-A level of Ocarina of Time, I’m not sure you’re gonna find it, unless you really scour the free deals thread.
Unfortunately, most of the good totally free games are Visual Novels, or text adventures. Big RPGs take a budget, so you’re gonna rub up against issues unless you’re okay with at least cosmetic microtransactions.
Now, you can find a lot of games for exceedingly cheap. Terraria, for instance, is only $10, but refusing to spend a dime is much, much harder than only spending $5-10. Flash game RPGs just are not very… good.
The other avenue is romhacks for existing RPGs on systems like Gameboy Advance, which use an old game to provide a new experience (the tweaks range from minor to entirely new stories and stuff), but their quality can be dodgy.
You may be able to find some old RPGs as abandonware?
I’d recommend The Ur-Quan Masters as a free RPG with a good plot and simple controls. It’s a fan-made graphical update of the abandonware Star Control II.
Path of Exile is pretty good. It’s like Diablo but with much more open-ended character building.
I apologize for being misleading, it was wrong to imply that I want OOT-level graphics for free. I meant in terms of story simplicity. When it comes to the main plotline, “go kill the bad guy” is enough for me, but I want a little more freedom in getting to endgame. You know, “role play”?
I have no problem with 2D games, I’ve done my share of Pokemon and the original Legend of Zelda.
OK, so I’ve been playing Fallout 4, with the free weekend, but it reminds me of Witcher 3 – really open world, constant harvesting (plants, meat) and crafting. I find myself confused all the time about what I should do, what’s the best path to take. Every item seems to have a million options for upgrades and such. I’ve been collecting everything I see and now I’m too heavy and can’t run. I can’t remember where to go to use up some of the junk into upgrades, and if I did, I wouldn’t know what upgrades I should do.
On the other hand, the radio station is awesome and the songs are great. The game is really beautifully done, but it’s not for me.
Most of the crafting/upgrading/settlement stuff in FO4 can be safely ignored and you can just play by shooting things with whatever you picked up off the ground. But that might seem unsatisfying to know that you’re not using the best options.
Oh, a game that hasn’t been mentioned yet: Prey (2017). Just called Prey on Steam but there’s an older game with the same name. You wind up on a space station with everyone apparently dead and infested with alien critters. Game has varying elements of stealth and/or shooter depending on how you play it. It’s semi-linear in that you need to unlock portions of the station as you go along but there’s different paths, side quests and even the initial area to explore is a good size.
Crafting is limited to “dump your trash into this Reclaimer Machine, get the cubes of raw material and make some more ammo or health kits”. Weapon upgrading is simple: find an upgrade kit, use it on a weapon and pick to enhance its damage, range, ammo capacity, etc. Basic stuff.
Game is attractive with a 60s design aesthetic. Flying around outside the station is a treat. It’s gone on sale for as low as $15 over the holiday season.
Prey looks pretty cool. My system may not be up to it, though. I’ll put it on the wishlist, and if there’s a free weekend, I’ll see if I can play it.
I’ve started playing Borderlands 2 The Pre-Sequel and I had forgotten how much I loved B2. I’m going to play through the Pre-Sequel and get back to this thread later.
You’re right about how skipping the crafting makes the game frustrating, because I’m not optimizing stuff. I take forever to get through games, always searching, picking up stuff, etc., to make sure I’m doing everything right. That’s just the way I play, but it can make higher complexity games frustrating.
Thanks again for all the suggestions!
Your system can play Prey. I have a 970 GPU and Phenom II x4 955 and I can run it fine. I presume you have at least 8GB of ram?
Yeah, I played it on an i7-860 with a R9 290X 4GB
You can demo the game now if you want. There’s a “Download Demo” button under “Friends who own this” on the right hand side of the screen. It sounds as though you’re having fun in BL:tPS but whenever you want, you can test Prey without waiting for a free weekend.
I think the demo is for the first hour which isn’t a ton of game play (gotta get the exposition out of the way first) but should at least show how well your system handles it and give you a taste.
Most of the things for sale are aesthetic, but you can also buy some stuff that helps gameplay-wise like additional stash tabs. They’re not necessary to play (and I certainly wouldn’t buy them until trying out the game for awhile to make sure it’s your thing) but some of the stash tabs really go a long way in making things easier. Especially the currency tab (lets you hold all your currency in one spot instead of spread out in stacks of tens) and custom tabs (which you can use to list items for trading).
Thanks for the clarification. Now I won’t have to bother.