CD Projekt Red is tossing lots of money at tournaments but is generally trying to build up its esports scene organically. Gwent went into open beta in May and captured the hearts of CCG and Witcher fans alike. PWE provides stability, at least, and hasn't done anything yet to make players regret the move. Maybe that's not such a bad thing, seeing as how many issues Motiga had. Motiga's beleaguered hero battler finally launched in 2017 – and, just a few months later, Motiga shut down and the game went 100% into Perfect World Entertainment's hands. FN:BR's popularity hasn't slowed PUBG down, though, so the two should continue to vie for players' attentions throughout the year – and, given the genre's explosive growth, it wouldn't surprise us if another battle royale game got headlines in 2018. With the basic Fortnite game still in paid early access, free-to-play Fortnite: Battle Royale has taken the internet by storm and started a war with the “other” popular Battle Royale game, the previously unassailable PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds. If you're looking for a “World of Spaceships”-type game similar to Wargaming's titles, check it out. It's got 8v8 PvP action, a kind of PvE “ horde mode,” and Twitch drops to let you win cool stuff just for watching streams of the game.
Grey Box and Studio Yager's big spaceship shooter made it out of drydock on PC and PlayStation 4 this year. It's a bit grindy and could still use more variety in its battles, but if you can get past that, it offers a wealth of options for making your personalized death machine. Targem Games and Gaijin Entertainment's customizable car-combat zoomed out of the garage in May.
It's an all-around great effort, well-deserving of the kudos it receives. In addition to making a great game, the dev team also gets an A+ for communication, producing an extensive roadmap to keep players in the know about what's coming next. Stunlock Studios' highly anticipated follow-up to Bloodline Champions finally launched out of early access in November and immediately shot up the list of most-played games on Steam. So … not the best of years, but also not the worst. Oh, and then it ceased development altogether.
Actually, Gearbox Entertainment called it a “ free trial,” even though it seemed in line with other F2P games. Now that we've got the rules out of the way, it's on to the juicy, juicy list!Īfter months of speculation, and outright denial, Battleborn finally made its long-expected conversion to a F2P game.
That excludes paid early access periods (not free) and games in a closed beta (not available to everyone).
Our list is just ordered alphabetically, so we'll leave it up to you to decide what you think were free-to-play's best new entrants for the year!Īs a reminder, we consider a free-to-play game “new” or “launched” when it goes what we call “fully free-to-play.” That means it's totally free to download and play and anyone can do it, any time. We're also interested to hear what you guys think were free-to-play's best new entrants, so we've set up a poll at the end of this article where you can let us know what game you thought rose above the rest. The past year saw a number of new free-to-play games enter the market, as well as a few conversions of paid games to free, and we've compiled a list of what we think were the best of the bunch.ĭon't just take our word for it, though.
Like the plague victim in Monty Python and the Holy Grail, free-to-play's not dead yet – not by a long shot.