Breathtaking Video Games That Didn’t Cost Tons Of Millions
There’s a certain select group of genres that lend their strengths well to a free-to-play model, MOBAs and card games the most prominent examples, but they’re by no means the only examples.
Fallout Shelter
Who’d have thought that Fallout Shelter – considered, at first glance, at least, to be little more than a side project pieced together to drum up hype for Fallout 4 – would eventually go on to outlive the latter’s relevance?
Bethesda’s support of the post-apocalyptic sequel has long since come to an end, but it continues to bring new content to the little mobile game that could, itself stealing away the precious few free hours of many would-be Overseers.
In a lot of ways, Shelter’s main appeal is similar to that of EA’s Sims, constantly requiring players to babysit its Vault’s inhabitants, care for and train them until they’re ready to re-enter the cesspit that is irradiated Boston to scavenge supplies and go on adventures.
Whether they return with untold riches or get themselves eaten via transit by a Deathclaw doesn’t matter. Everything, including your Vault dwellers, is a replaceable cog in the machine to build the world’s biggest Vault.
World Of Tanks
Why bother with the human element of war when tanks exist? Wargaming’s massively multiplayer war sim does away with the espionage, air superiority and small troop deployments of the modern war age and focuses solely on the greatest and most iconic combat tool ever built.
There are, of course, squishy humans piloting these mobile fortresses from within, but that’s not the focus here, it’s all about strategy. Who can get the drop on who and let loose a high-velocity shell into the chugging engine of an enemy tank first?
Speed, would you believe it, isn’t exactly a selling point when it comes to these cumbersome beasts, so it’ll take a while for World of Tanks’ appeal to ‘click’, but when it does – and believe me, it will – it’ll quickly become apparent that Wargaming’s done a superb job in blending realism with entertainment.
Every movement, shot and turret swivel you make requires careful consideration before the act is carried out, but sinking that perfect shot into several feet of solid metal and watching your victim’s vehicle explode in a hail of shrapnel ranks up there as one of the best video game experiences that you’ll never need to pay for.
Paragon
Ever wondered what become of Epic Games after it handed over the Gears of War reins to The Coalition and never looked back?
You’d be forgiven for thinking as much, given that it’s all but retreated from the public eye (unless you know where to look) but no, Epic’s not shut up shop for good – it’s very much alive and kicking, toiling away behind closed doors on its latest and greatest project – Paragon.
For now, at least, Epic’s take on MOBAs is still very much in its larval form, but even in beta, it already exudes an identity, level of polish and visual quality that just simply doesn’t exist in the genre right now. Like its closest relative SMITE, Paragon ditches the top-down isometric view of League or Dota for a third-person orientation that, besides ramping up immersion, does wonders for emphasising action elements rather than one of clinical strategy.
That’s not to say it’s mindless fun, far from it, Paragon’s just considerably faster paced than its contemporaries and it’s all the better for it. Even so, you’ll want to give each session a substantial time buffer, a single match can last anywhere from a handful of minutes to upwards of an hour.
Warframe
If you’re not aware of Warframe, you should make it your mission to read up on Digital Extreme’s third-person shooter post haste, especially if, like any sane person, you like free stuff.
Funded entirely by an in-game cash shop that sells nothing not already obtainable through play, Warframe’s sheer size and breadth of content on its own is enough of an affront against those publishers that require several payments – base game, expansions, costume and map packs, the list goes on – to acquire everything, but it extends beyond that.
Every last inch of Warframe’s expansive galaxy feels like, in every sense of the term, a triple-A game without the steep cost associated with post-launch bolt-ons. I’m not, for a second, advocating that video games should be doled out to the masses for nothing, but Warframe dares to challenge the status quo by making everything free, only requiring that you burn a few notes if you’re looking for a shortcut.
Path Of Exile
Isometric dungeon crawlers are a rare breed indeed. Why? Nobody knows, but Grinding Gear Games, perturbed by the distinct lack of top-down, kill ‘n loot experiences on the market, decided to take a crack at making its own. Little did it know that what emerged three years later would be a shining star, a renaissance, even, of a genre left largely by the wayside.
That was four years ago. Since then, Path of Exile’s borders have continued to expand under the guidance of Grinding Gears’ gifted team, its status as an entirely free game growing all the more impressive with each passing content update, its very existence a bitter pill for Blizzard to swallow.
See, Diablo III is Path of Exile’s only real competition, but it requires a full purchase, boasts less content than Path of Exile and, perhaps most damning of all, seems to have been largely abandoned by Blizzard, only being kept alive by a skeleton crew that push out minor updates.
Perhaps the new content on its way later this year will scrub that slate clean, but for now, Path of Exile reins supreme, both in its genre and as an outstanding free game.
Source – Gaming Whatculture
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