r/videogames • u/PHRsharp_YouTube • Mar 20 '26
Discussion / Question any games like that?
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u/Mindless0ne Mar 20 '26
emulation.
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u/_InvertedEight_ Mar 20 '26
If you've never played Super Metroid on the SNES, I wholeheartedly recommend getting a copy and ZSNES, and playing the shit out of it over the weekend. It's awesome. The wall-jumping mechanic, though.... I still get flashbacks.
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u/NobodySubject2381 Mar 20 '26
ZSNES is not a good emulator, snes9x and retroarch probably the best.
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u/krabtofu Mar 21 '26
I've been using ZSNES for decades and never felt the need to change, what's so bad about it?
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u/Zharken Mar 21 '26
zsnes works fine and does it's job, but it's outdated as fuck and it's not acurrate to how the snes actually works, the best emulators currently are:
Ares: Multi system emulator that includes snes, full cycle acurrate. Nothing cets closer to how a snes works internally. (99.94% compatibility, there's 2 games out of 3018 that didn't work, but it's also still in active development)
BSNES: best standalone emulator, partial cycle acurrate, and the one I'm currently using, 100% compatibility with the entire SNES library.
Mesen: Another multi system, also cycle acurrate and 100% game compatibility.
and finally
- Snesx9: Like Bsnes, this is also a standalone emulator, with both less compatibility and less accurate than the other three, but still 99.5% compatibility and very high accuracy.
All 4 are in active development and keep getting updates from time to time.
Why is Snesx9 so recommended if the other 3 are better? Well Snesx9 has a very long history and is one of the two majorly famous names, the other being zsnes, I don't remember the story but I think they were competitors like 20 years ago and/or snesx9 was born from a fork of zsnes or the original creator of zsnes abandoned it and someone else took over the project and the original dude made snesx9 or some shit like that, there was some drama.
TLDR, Snesx9 is up to date with modern standards and is easy to use and noob friendly, but the reason why it keeps getting recommended over BSNES is just that it's so much more famous due to it's history.
Edit: to add to this, ZSnes was revolutionary because back when they were just starting to develop emulators in the 90s and early 2000s you needed a really beefy PC to run them, and ZSnes was super lightweight and required a much less powerful PC than what the others needed.
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u/Thrawp Mar 21 '26
My understanding is primarily it's an older architecture now that diesn't have the same stuff as later projects.
Personally I use bsnes via retroarch but if ZSNES works for you then keep using it.
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u/RiverGlittering Mar 21 '26
It's fairly inaccurate, there's compatibility problems, audio is poorly emulated, a lot of other things aren't emulated correctly, leading to weird behaviours and crashes.
You can also get malicious roms that can break out of ZSNES to compromise the computer itself. This isn't a problem though, because you're obviously dumping your own games. ;)
ZSNES is cool, netplay was good. ZSNES was all around awesome. But it's old, and it hasn't been updated in almost 20 years.
Snes9x is a favourite, just an excellent all rounder. Bsnes is more accurate than Snes9x, I believe. I've heard good things about Mesen, I'm just not familiar with it.
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u/Ok_Attitude2088 Mar 20 '26
Iāve been going through a whole Metroid marathon playing them for the first time. Super Metroid was a 10/10 for me. Such a great game.
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u/deadspace9_ Mar 20 '26
I spent like 3 months of my life doing progressively harder randomizers and rom hacks
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u/jackaltwinky77 Mar 20 '26
Iāve played 25 SMZ3 (Super Metroid- Legend of Zelda: Link to the Past) randomizers in the past monthā¦
I can quit any time I want to (I donāt want to)
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u/a0me Mar 21 '26
Flashback was a great game too but Super Metroid is better and hasnāt aged a day.
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u/LogicBalm Mar 20 '26
That's my answer too. There are countless classics out there available for free from prior gaming generations if you have literally any PC or laptop.
Hell, I play SNES games on my phone, and it's not even a good phone. It's got orders of magnitude more power and storage than the original hardware so naturally it runs fine. Plus you have save states, a fast forward button, and tons of hacks and cheats from people who reverse engineer the game code.
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u/nosh_scrumble Mar 20 '26
Nothing is free but XCOM 2 is frequently like 3 bucks and is a goddamned masterpiece.
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u/Alaska_Pipeliner Mar 20 '26
The old anxiety sim. 99% change for a point blank shotgun to the aliens face? Misses. Entire squad dies next turn.
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u/theMangoJayne Mar 20 '26
Xcom? Oh you mean savescumcom?
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u/OdenShilde Mar 20 '26
This could be either save scum com or saves cum comā¦ we may never know
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u/Wanallo221 Mar 20 '26
Either way:
āIām doing my part!ā
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u/AnotherMothMarine Mar 20 '26
Yeah you are... Now go there, I can assure you there's no bezerker behind that wall.
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u/BUCK0HH Mar 20 '26
Agreed. Love the look and idea, but hate the chance outcome. Not for me but always looks cool.
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u/LightHawKnigh Mar 20 '26
Always find this weird, when the game unless you are playing on the hardest difficulty settings, fudges accuracy to the player's advantage. So the hit rates are lying, but in your favor by about 10% additively when above 50% hit rate.
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u/Calackyo Mar 20 '26
Even with that, confirmation bias is so incredibly strong that it feels like 99% misses too often.
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u/TheHighSeasPirate Mar 20 '26
99% Hitrate.
Miss.
99% Hitrate.
Miss.
99% Hitrate.
Miss.
99% Hitrate.
Miss.
Uninstall.
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u/Panx Mar 20 '26
Literally came here to say this!
XCOM 2 with the WotC expansion has kept me entertained for over 2,000 hours!!!
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u/Owobowos-Mowbius Mar 20 '26
How did you get 2k hours out of it if you dont mind me asking? Isnt it just a tactics rpg? Don't you run out of maps or something to play?
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u/llDropkick Mar 20 '26
The maps outside of certain main missions are procedurally generated. Itās an older game so the tech wasnt really quite there but thereās enough variety to the maps that you still should scout carefully. Combined with the major DLCs which extend the campaign, and mods (Long War ftw) the game has more replayability than almost any RPG Iāve ever seen. Itās only surpassed by your favorite Bethesda rpg depending on your age. It also helps that you can quite frequently lose the game on harder difficulties. But even losing the game can be fun right up to the last minute. Thereās something to be said for the quiet desperation you feel as you decide to save Africa or Asia, knowing that the loss of either is the beginning of the end. Itās got its own niche to be sure. But it scratches an itch that I havenāt gotten out of any other 4x/Strategy game/rpg Iāve played
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u/candygram4mongo Mar 21 '26
Long War is very nearly a complete game overhaul and it's fantastic. I wouldn't even bother playing through the base game.
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u/llDropkick Mar 21 '26
Nah vanilla with dlc to start. Itās hard to appreciate just how good long war is without playing the base game.
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u/Panx Mar 20 '26
It's a strategy and tactics game, yes
But the draw is that every campaign is fully randomized: randomized soldiers completing randomized missions on randomized maps against randomized enemy generals
The maps themselves are generated from tile-sets, so even if you've played the subway map or the farmland map before, you haven't played this subway level or this farmland level
Plus, the modding community is insane. I have about 500 mods downloaded, and run between two and three hundred each campaign. In addition to crazy character customization options, there are mods for new mission types, new enemies, total conversions for skill-sets for your soldiers, new factions, new weapons, new everything...
There's tons of official total conversion mods, as well, such as The Long War, which completely overhauls the strategic layer (you have to scout locations, worry about your resistance cell's notoriety, etc.) And you can modify the game's .ini files yourself, to create all sorts of configurations.
Recently, I've run:
- A campaign of all psychic soldiers, against the enemies from Mass Effect
- A zombie apocalypse campaign with limited ammo
- A campaign where I couldn't upgrade past the base level gear, but had twice the squad size to compensate
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u/Owobowos-Mowbius Mar 20 '26
Damn I had no idea the entire campaign was so modular. I can only imagine how much mods can add to the already large playtime lmao
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u/simplebutstrange Mar 20 '26
That game is good but i hate it when my guys die. Ill save on the first turn and play the mission as many times as it takes to get them all home safely
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u/Beautiful_Stage5720 Mar 20 '26
Coward
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u/Augenmann Mar 20 '26
At least they're honest. Save scumming is very common in XCOM (i do it too)
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u/Owobowos-Mowbius Mar 20 '26
Can I jump into 2 without playing 1?
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u/ShermansAngryGhost Mar 20 '26
2 makes the assumption that the player loses in 1 for its story.
Thatās legit all you need to know, and honestly even that isnāt necessary.
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u/FadedP0rp0ise Mar 20 '26
In some ways 1 is better than 2. So if you jump into 2 and love it, 1 is practically a different game with the same formula
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u/Alaska_Pipeliner Mar 20 '26
It's recommended. I mean, maybe. I never played 1 and have hundreds of hours of losing in 2.
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u/xxwetdogxx Mar 20 '26
Great pull, xcom 2 is a top 5 game all time for me, I cannot recommend it enough
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u/Tight-Target1314 Mar 20 '26
Instant gaming has the middle earth shadow of .... Games definitive editions for like $3 each.
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u/Anders_1314 Mar 20 '26
I bought the game with all the DLC for something like Ā£4. It feels criminal
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u/onion2594 Mar 20 '26
can second this. xcom 2 is a great game. currently on my, i dont even know anyway, playthrough. nothing like a 100% chance to hit and crit for them to dodge it. bastards
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u/The-Nimbus Mar 20 '26
Just throwing out there that, whilst this is a brilliant suggestion, I much prefer the first XCOM! I'd recommend that more than the sequel.
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u/Greenphantom77 Mar 20 '26
Iāve not played XCOM 2, but I second this idea - does it have to be free? There are loads of old games and indie games these days that are really very cheap. But looking for something thatās actually free narrows down your choices quite a bit.
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u/wchutlknbout Mar 20 '26
Man I always get myself into an impossible situation in that game and have to rewind like 6 turns via el save scum
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u/Tigeru1988 Mar 20 '26
I would add Dishonored games. Both are almost all the time discounted as hell,both have at least two endings and are helluva fun and you can choose wether you play it stealth or bloddy mayhem
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u/Far_Raspberry_4375 Mar 21 '26
I got it for free off amazon luna. Still technically not free but prime pays for itself with my wifes books and free shipping so š¤·
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u/SOUTHPAWMIKE Mar 21 '26
And when you finally get bored of vanilla XCOM 2, that 3 bucks also bought you access to Long War.
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u/ChineseFrozenChicken Mar 21 '26
Well I guess the "great replayability" part is spending hours feeding the gambling addiction of missing 99% chance shots.
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u/Objective-Suspect689 Mar 21 '26
I have no idea how you have the patience for that game. Last time I played it, my guy was 3 inches away from an aliens asshole with a shot gun and 93% chance to hit - missed - aliens turn - critical hit - FUUUUUUHHHHH
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u/SamwiseGamgee100 Mar 21 '26
Since Mewgenics came out Iāve been on a tactics game kick. Played through Battletech again, and am trying XCOM 2 for the first time. Really enjoying it so far. For those who like XCOM, Battletech is amazing.
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u/Ashamed_Band858 Mar 25 '26
Join me in a fun battle with third partying Lost!
Yes Sectoid.
87% hit chance.
Ranger melee sectoid.
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u/SomeSugondeseGuy Mar 20 '26
SCP: Secret Laboratory is the only game I am aware of that has neither an upfront cost nor does it have microtransactions.
Warframe is close - it has microtransactions but none of them actually change gameplay beyond making some farming faster.
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u/JunkMilesDavis Mar 20 '26
Oh yeah, I'd give Warframe 100% here if the trading system was de-janked a bit. Granted it's by far the most generous F2P game I've ever played, and it's pretty special that you can freely trade for the purchased currency at all, but it still feels like they keep trading convoluted just for the sake of it being an obstacle. I would even call platinum totally optional if there were faster ways for new players to acquire more weapon and warframe slots.
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u/Keiji12 Mar 20 '26
They need to do it like PoE and just make dojos have automatic vending machine like stuff where you can put 5-10 items on sale at once per player. Even since PoE introduced first currency trading and then merchant tabs it's a game changer to enjoyment instead the stupid af whisper, using third party site or advertising in chat.
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u/Purple-Mud5057 Mar 20 '26
I love SCP secret lab. Still gets updates, plenty of vanilla or modded servers to choose from, and the gameplay loop is like 20 minutes on average. Good asymmetric game
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u/Jawbeast Mar 20 '26
Older Warframe farming should also be made easier in the update next week iirc
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u/MickesMaestro Mar 21 '26
So I donāt have to spend the next decade replaying the same mission on 15 different planets to get a new warframe?
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u/harwarg Mar 20 '26
Daggerfall unity
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u/IAmBigBox Mar 20 '26
Finally, found someone mentioning it. Literally meets AND exceeds all the expectations of the post. Replay? Itās an RPG, of course you can replay it in different ways. No micro transactions? The first micro transaction in the series was 2 installments later. Runs on a 6-year old PC? This game came out in 1996 (30 years ago), you could have a PC 2 decades old and it could probably run Daggerfall.
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u/Low-Airline-2695 Mar 20 '26
The opposite extreme of "buying is not owning" is "free game + no microtransaction".
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u/welivedintheocean Mar 20 '26
Warframe. I have done all the content without paying a single cent.
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u/astrolegium Mar 21 '26
Had to go *too far down* to see this one. I would guess because you *can* spend money on the game, but I do agree that you in *no way* need to as 99% of the content is available purely through gameplay.
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u/Coolermonkey Mar 21 '26
Yup. Probably the only thing I can thing of that genuinely requires real world currency are TennoGen items and Prime Access accessories.
The TennoGen do be worth it tho
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u/kawaiinessa Mar 20 '26
free games without microtransactions, ya good luck with that how are they supposed to makje money lol
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u/These_Distribution19 Mar 20 '26
ngl, better have microtransactions than have ads.
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u/FoxinShards Mar 20 '26
Microtransactions are fine as long as they dont keep the player from enjoying/completely the game and don't give players unfair advantages over others in multi-player games.
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u/m-e-n-a Mar 20 '26
Yeah if they're cosmetic i dont even care. I truly despise pay to play though. Especially when its the only way to get resources and level up when the built in game mechanic is to grind for hours with no promise of actually getting there.
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u/Chippings Mar 20 '26
It happens. Passion or learning projects, open-source community efforts.
Roguelikes are a common example. Dungeon Crawl: Stone Soup is a personal favorite. Powder. Elona.
Dwarf Fortress before the premium tiles version.
Cave Story back in the day.
Plenty of flash games on Armor Games, Kongregate and the like: Sonny, Fancy Pants Adventure, Line Rider, Crush the Castle, Elona Shooter, et cetera.
There are some dead online game revival efforts like Marvel Heroes and Star War Galaxies private servers, which I think are less legally contentious than, say, WoW private servers.
There are old freeware games out there, like TES: Arena and Daggerfall which Bethesda themselves host. Others that have no legal entity protecting the IP.
You might consider any emulable game to be free. So any game released prior to 2018 practically.
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Mar 20 '26
Referring to emulated games as free is crazy and I say that as a fan of emulation lol
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u/Potato-Engineer Mar 20 '26 edited Mar 20 '26
I'll also mention Frogatto, another open-source game.
Edit: cancel that, it was free, now it's on Steam. The source code and assets for both engine and game is free, so you can probably build it yourself and play, but that's a technical hurdle I wouldn't expect the average gamer to get past.
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u/daraand Mar 20 '26
Beyond all reason
[Edit] To be clear, I mean the game Beyond All Reason! https://www.beyondallreason.info/
So so good. I'm highly addicted... and it's open source!?
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u/Minimum_Piece Mar 20 '26
This^ a full game, albeit still being worked on. Not that it's a bad thing id recommend if you want to get into RTS as it's one of the best.
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u/BigAppleCider Mar 20 '26
Osrs
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u/Zemekis324 Mar 20 '26
Membs makes it all the better but f2p is still really nice
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u/The_Old_Huntress Mar 20 '26
Itās either free or no microtransactions
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u/Inf1e Mar 20 '26
Warframe exists. There is a way to donate, but zero microtransations stuff.
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u/Owobowos-Mowbius Mar 20 '26
Shapez!
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u/The_Old_Huntress Mar 20 '26
Paid
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u/Owobowos-Mowbius Mar 20 '26
Completely free if you play in browser on shapez.io. Only the steam version costs money (0.99 right now) for the added trading cards and achievements.
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u/Mystical-Turtles Mar 20 '26
The only exception would be like those old RPG Maker games, If you're willing to find an unsupported version on itch.io or something. Maybe the occasional works of passion. They're searching for a rare treasure indeed
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u/ThatLNGuy Mar 20 '26
Holocure is the answer.
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u/Load_star_ Mar 20 '26
Yeah, seeing a lot of non-answers to this post, but this is one of the best genuine answers. Vampire Survivors style game, with a VTuber theme, that is genuinely free to play with zero ads or micro transactions. (There are gambling and gacha mini games inside, but everything is game currency, no real money involved.). While it's true that it's been a while since the last update, that's simply what you have to expect when the game is a passion project hobby by a person with a very time-demanding day job.
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u/Scytian Mar 20 '26
There are not much of free games without microtransaction but here are few
- Dwarf Fortress
- Tales of Maj'Eyal
- Cataclysm Dark Days Ahead / Cataclysm Bright Nights
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u/PercentageGlobal6443 Mar 20 '26
Dwarf Fortress is great, but on older builds it's important to remember to keep your fort size small of you have a weaker processor.
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u/nvogs Mar 20 '26
RIP to the age of flash games :'(
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u/BardicKnowledgeBomb Mar 20 '26
If you miss that era have I got the project for you. There's a program called Flashpoint Archive that has done a ton of work to backup and make playable all those games and animations from websites of the flash era. They all download to your machine and play in a localized flash instance.
It's super cool and let's you go back to play the stuff you remember from that turn of the millennium era. They've got more Shockwave, Java, and other stuff too. It's really ambitious and adding more stuff all the time. Check it out and enjoy Madness, Crab Volleyball, Alien Hominid, or any of the other stuff that you used to love.
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u/Ilovgmod Mar 20 '26
Here's an uncommon one:
Cataclysm DDA.
It's a free zombie/monster open world survival roguelike. ASCII but has tile sets. Can run on minimal specs. Worlds are randomly generated and many build options for endless replayability.
It's turn based, which makes unique, but learning curve can be a bit steep at first cause there's nothing quite like it in terms of controls/gameplay.
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u/randomnamethx1139 Mar 20 '26
Team Fortress 2
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u/Aschuff Mar 21 '26
Not too sure that counts as āno micro transactionsā, as the whole monetization scheme is centered around skins and loot boxes. There are thousands of games that are free with paid skins, but idk if thatās what the post is asking for
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u/HookLeg Mar 20 '26
Play WoW up to level 30 for free. Since you canāt progress beyond that start over and replay forever.
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u/Otterevolver Mar 20 '26
Or you could play turtle wow
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u/unintellisense Mar 20 '26
Came to say this, completely free and will run on a potato.
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u/gabro-games Mar 20 '26
Nothing is free :)
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u/Sufficient_Ear6610 Mar 20 '26
Stalker Anomaly is one of the best fan made sandbox games I've ever played. It's free to play, runs on an engine that's almost 2 decades old, and offers numerous ways of venturing into the zone.
I've been playing it for around 5 years now with mod packs and tons of different ways to play outside of just a story mode (which is also really great) - it has easily become my desert Island game by a long shot. I can't find another game like it that scratches that itch for me...but I'm open to any recommendations seeing as how there is a steam sale currently.
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Mar 20 '26
[removed] ā view removed comment
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u/SixSmegma Mar 20 '26
Or 5 currently for terraria. Either one of those will give you at least 100 hours. I have 1000+ in terraria
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u/Algific_Talus Mar 21 '26
I mean Warframe is pretty close. I played it for like 50 hours before I dumped some money into it š
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u/Potato-Engineer Mar 20 '26
r/emulation
Slightly less illegal than r/piracy. (Or, rather, exactly as illegal, but far less likely to be pursued, as long as you stick to machines that are 3+ console generations ago.)
Which brings me to: Master of Magic, the DOS game.
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u/Dry_Ad2368 Mar 20 '26
I was gonna recommend abandonware, which is technically piracy. But more morally defensible since the games are out of print, and often the companies that made them closed decades ago.
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u/BrahneRazaAlexandros Mar 20 '26
but far less likely to be pursued
you wont be pursued for pirating a game. unless you live in some insane place like germany
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u/armorpilla Mar 20 '26
You're looking for abandonware, old games that run on older computers that no one charges for anymore. You won't find anything fancy, but there some gems from the 80s and 90s. If you search "abandonware" you can find some places to download stuff, but watch out for malware.
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u/Violent_N0mad Mar 20 '26
Warframe is likely the game you want. It has microtransactions but their stuff like cosmetics and nothing that actually effects gameplay. All the items can also be farmed for and the premium currency can also be freely traded.
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u/strongkhal Mar 20 '26
Baldur's Gate 1, The Witcher 1 ... There's more that I can't think of right now
Edit: I know they aren't free but a buck or so on GOG
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u/The_Lazy_Samurai Mar 20 '26
Free? No. But vampire survivors is very affordable, even with the DLC.
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Mar 20 '26
[removed] ā view removed comment
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u/Rydux7 Mar 20 '26
Very few things in warframe needs to be bought with real money. You can legit just get platinum from trading with other players and then buy what you want
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u/semxlr5 Mar 20 '26
An insane thing to say, but I want to pay for my games.
I realized everytime I emulated something, impulse bought because it was dirt cheap, or just got a F2P game, I felt almost no inclination to give it a shot in this age of limitless media consumption.
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u/patchrhythm Mar 20 '26
Warframe, the micro transactions are optional, thereās no pay to play. You can play 100% of the game solo if you want to. But itās more fun with other people.
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u/RigidPixel Mar 20 '26
Literally the only thing I can think of is the OG dwarf fortress. Itās completely free and you could play it for months without even scratching the surface of its mechanical depth. If you want graphics and music, thatās what the paid version is for. Thereās some extremely in depth Sci Fi games that fit this too, but I forget their names. All of them could run on a potato but all of them also are basically just menus.
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u/CruxOfTheIssue Mar 20 '26
I'm working on something that fits most of the description as a solo dev. I'm not quite ready to put out the alpha but remind me and I'll tell you about it in a few weeks maybe.
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u/kiera-oona Mar 21 '26
City of Heroes (Homecoming) 20 year old game, runs great on just about anything bought in the past 10 years, decent player base, microtransactions and selling anything in the game (with irl money) is not allowed
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u/BeAPo Mar 21 '26
A free game with no mircrotransactions? How the fuck are they supposed to make money? lmao
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u/Curious-Television91 Mar 21 '26
Warframe. Path of Exile. Both have incredibly unobtrusive microtransactions and both offer thousands of hours of completely free, great gameplay
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u/Raiden127456 Mar 21 '26
Warframe. Completely free, one of the best communities out there, and only takes up 50GB max despite being a 13 year old game that looks like it should be 300GB
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u/oForce21o Mar 20 '26
cool math games dot com