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The self-publishing video game marketplace Itch.io is unique for its huge array of user-created video games spanning all styles and price points. There's little moderation or editorialization of the listings, unlike Steam or Epic Games, so users can publish whatever they like (barring illegal or similar content) and have full control of the monetization of their work.
The Best Free-To-Play PC Games (June 2024)
From MMOs to hero shooters and short indie games, free-to-play PC games offer quantity and quality. Here are the best free titles on the market.
Developers can even choose to make their Itch.io games free or offer a pay-if-you-want scheme. While this can be used to release free versions of paid games, like a trial version, many developers choose to release full-fledged projects for nothing at all. Though lots of these are not worth checking out, this list of the best free itch.io games highlights fifteen options that punch way above their weight.
Updated January 19, 2024 by Erik Petrovich: Itch.io is home to an enormous number of games, and perhaps surprisingly, some of the best itchio games are free. Though itch.io does let developers offer a pay-what-you-want scheme, a number of itch.io's best games don't require players to give anything to download full games. Two new additions, Bloodborne PSX and DELTARUNE, give players a unique approach to FromSoftware's seminal Bloodborne and a follow-up to the critically-acclaimed Undertale. Look too for links directly to every project being recommended, and consider giving developers a donation if you enjoyed their free itchio games.
15 Bloodborne PSX
- Developer: LWMedia
- Gameplay/Genre: Action
Bloodborne PSX is a free re-creation of the first few hours of the FromSoftware game Bloodborne in a style reminiscent of PlayStation 1 games. A big genre on itch.io is the horror PSX genre, where games are made to intentionally call back to this early 3D era of games, and the world of Bloodborne feels like a natural fit for this visual approach.
If you never had a PlayStation console and missed out on Bloodborne, Bloodborne PSX is a great way to get a taste of the aesthetic and story of the regular game. But returning fans of the game will love its adjusted PS1-esque combat and its polygonal art style that forces the player to fill in the blanks with their imagination, often making the game's already-horrific monsters look that much scarier.
14 DELTARUNE (Chapters One & Two)
- Developer: Toby Fox
- Gameplay/Genre: RPG
DELTARUNE is the latest project from Undertale developer Toby Fox, and has been in the works for more than a few years at this point. Though the full game isn't available yet, Fox has released two Chapters that make up the first two parts of the game. In tandem, there's at least a dozen or so hours of gameplay to get through, harkening back to Undertale in a kind of parallel universe, with new combat systems, characters, and even setting.
These first two chapters of DELTARUNE are available for free on itch.io, and later chapters will likely be made available for free when they release, too. DELTARUNE will be released in its entirety as a purchasable game at some point, but until then, these two chapters – and the chapters to come – should keep Undertale fans sated.
13 Get In The Car, Loser!
- Developer: Love Conquers All Games
- Gameplay/Genre: RPG
Get In The Car, Loser! is a technically-paid game with a free base version that gives players a taste of its particularly colorful (and modern) world. Its active-time RPG mechanics feel fine-tuned compared to the turn-based RPGs it was inspired by, and its LGBT-centric story, characters, and aesthetics feel just as modern. It's one of those good Itch.io games that puts its own spin on a classic genre.
It's a bombastic road trip adventure through a fusion of modern and fantasy settings as players go from being at the Gas Station refueling the eponymous car to battling the Machine Devil with the Sword of Fate. The creator of the game describes it as a game about "discovering yourself, whatever the f**k that means".
12 Right Click To Necromance
- Developer: Juicy Beast
- Gameplay/Genre: Hack N' Slash
Right Click to Necromance is a simple game with a simple concept - left click to control your skeletal army, and right-click to use your necromancer powers to resurrect your fallen enemies. It was created for the Indie Speed Run jam in 2015, and was amazingly developed in less than 48 hours. It's one of the best Itch.io games made in such a short time span.
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While the game itself was made by one person, two others worked on the game's music. It's impressive to see what such a small team can accomplish in such a short amount of time, and it's well worth checking out for its totally unique gameplay.
11 FAITH
- Developer: New Blood Interactive
- Gameplay/Genre: Horror
FAITH is a lo-fi horror game that takes major inspiration from the MS-DOS and Atari era of video games, though it's something quite unlike the innocent offerings of that time. Despite its graphical style, it's one of the most spooky games on the Itch.io platform, and it's surely one that will stick with horror gaming fans.
It currently has three chapters, though the third chapter is still in its demo phase. The game is technically free, but by paying only a dollar to the developer, players get access to a deluxe version of the game, a number of cosmetics, the game's eerie soundtrack, and access to updates earlier than others.
10 Friday Night Funkin'
- Developer: The Funkin' Crew (ninjamuffin99, phantomarcade, eviksk8tr, kawaisprite)
- Gameplay/Genre: Rhythm/Music
Friday Night Funkin' is one of the most popular indie rhythm games ever released, and for good reason. It's got a huge amount of customization, the controls are perfectly intuitive and responsive, and the game's variety of mods and custom tracks make it nearly infinitely replayable.
If gamers haven't already seen this game in action, it's well worth checking out for the art style and music alone. It's regularly updated and has a huge following, despite being made by a tiny team, and it is regularly featured in the top 10 Itch.io games on the site's front page.
9 Juice Galaxy
- Developer: Fishlicka
- Gameplay/Genre: Open-World RPG
Juice Galaxy is a mind-bending exploration sandbox with an art style reminiscent of the PlayStation One and fluid physics-based animations and models. It's a really wacky game that might take some time to get used to, but it's worth it.
The game has RPG elements and a large and varied enough world to keep the player engaged for a few hours. It still receives regular updates, and as one of the best free games on Itch.io, it's worth checking out, even if its psychedelic and abstract style makes it hard to get into at first.
8 Doki Doki Literature Club
- Developer: Team Salvato
- Gameplay/Genre: Visual Novel..... Among Others
Doki Doki Literature Club is an innovative game, despite appearing like a normal Japanese visual novel. Without going too far into spoilers for the game, it's much different than most people expect and well worth going in blind for.
If the visual novel gameplay bores players, just give it half an hour to an hour to really get going. It's worth the ride, and the game's popularity on YouTube and streaming platforms is a testament to that fact.
7 We Become What We Behold
- Developer:
- Gameplay/Genre: Simulator
We Become What We Behold is an open-source satirical game that puts its sights on the endless news cycles we experience all around us. It's an extremely short game, but a great 5-minute experience for its commentary on how the media influences mass behavior.
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Taking pictures of people doing different actions affects the mini-society, and even gets into some harsh subjects subtly. It's hard to explain, but it's as intuitive as it is ingenious.
6 Baldi's Basics In Education and Learning
- Developer: Micah McGonigal
- Gameplay/Genre: Horror
Baldi's Basics in Education and Learning is one of the best games on Itch.io for horror fans. It creates its scares through the incredibly off-putting main character, Baldi, and the nightmarishly bizarre world the game takes place in.
It poses as a simple, badly designed children's educational game, but after just a few minutes in-game the player finds it to be a much, much more sinister experience.
5 Gacha Life PC
- Developer: Lunime
- Gameplay/Genre: Social
Gacha Life is a very popular mobile game on both Android and iOS that functions as a blend of a virtual dollhouse and a social experience. Players can customize up to eight chibi-like characters with a variety of accessories and take part in online chat rooms with NPCs and other people alike.
The PC version of this game is much more limited than its mobile counterparts, though, and functions as more of a demo than a full-fledged game. It's still regularly updated to this day, and is constantly becoming closer to the mobile version.
4 Terra Nil Prototype
- Developer: Free Lives
- Gameplay/Genre: Simulator/Strategy
Terra Nil is one of the most innovative and unique simulator games on the Itch.io platform, and unbelievably it's a name-your-own-price game. Terra Nil doesn't task the player with building a city, managing a home, or living a normal life as other simulation games do. Instead, the player must rebuild nature in a classic early 2000s pixel art world.
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The player takes the control of an ecosystem under reconstruction with the goal to turn a barren wasteland into a paradise. It was one of the best games on Itch.io for a while, but Free Lives, the development team behind the game, has since released a full version of the game. The full version is much more robust than the version still available on itch.io, but the Terra Nil prototype proved the concept and still offers a lot of gameplay for a grand price of zero dollars.
3 Stick It To The Stickman
- Developer: Free Lives
- Gameplay/Genre: Fighter/Roguelike
Stick It To The Stickman is a hectic single-player brawler with fluid stickman animations in a physics-based world. The game is a self-described rogue-lite where progress is reset after death, but some permanent upgrades stay between deaths.
It's another game made by Free Lives, the creators of Terra Nil, and just like all of their games, Stick It To The Stickman is surprisingly deep for being a free indie game.
2 A Firm Handshake
- Developer: Torfi
- Gameplay/Genre: Art Game/Indie
A Firm Handshake is a short yet open-ended game with no real focus. The game tasks the player to shake hands with various people in an off-brown world, and things get a little bit weirder as the game goes on.
It's hilarious, it's got a good art style that exemplifies its simplicity, and it's one of the few surreal games that actually make some kind of sense.
1 Coming Out Simulator 2014
- Developer: Nicky Case
- Gameplay/Genre: Simulator/Social
There have been a few games on itch.io that use the subject of Coming Out as an LGBT individual. The game Coming Out Simulator 2014 by Nicky Case, though, stands apart from the rest for its brutal honesty about "half-truths".
The game puts the player in control of the game's creator on the night of their coming out to their parents. The player can choose what to say and how to react to experience what it's like in such a nerve-wracking moment, and it gets across those feelings of apprehension and judgment perfectly.
