What are the best FREE games to play when you have freetime?

Warframe is free to play and nothing is locked behind money. it's got a really steep learning curve but pushing past it is well worth it.

Warframe is a great recommendation, and my strongest recommendation for anyone trying it is to not give up on it until you've completed the star chart and the quest called "The New War."

The early game was the earliest developed, and the very addictive late gameplay loop takes a while to settle into.

The above is probably 40+ hours of gameplay, which is a lot to ask before throwing in the towel, but as someone with probably 2,000+ hours in it off and on over the years, and who has probably only put in about $60 across that time mostly just to support the devs, it's great value if you have the time.

Protip: Don't spend platinum on anything other than slots for Warframes and weapons until you get at least that far in the game. You really don't need to spend the premium currency on almost anything other than those things as a convenience.
Warframe’s my example of free to play done well, can’t wait to jump back in when it goes cross save
- The Free-to-Play is done well when you reach a point where you just leave multiple completed weapons/warframes in the foundry. Until that point, it's kinda of a miserable experience waiting for them to finish.

I mean, just get the free game every week on the epic game store. That should cover all your free games gaming needs

i totaly forgot about the epic games store, its been so long, thank you for reminding me about it.
- I have an alarm set every week just for grabbing the free Epic game.

You could play the hit 2007 class-based shooter Team Fortress 2

will do!

Path of Exile

OpenTTD. May need some learning but it's really fun and addictive if you're into tycoons

In the same realm, OpenRCT2 and a lot of other games that were remade https://osgameclones.com/

Also https://play0ad.com/

If you like music, there are a bunch of good free rhythm games:

Osu
Stepmania/DDR - Main modern versions are Project Outfox and ITGmania
IIDX/BMS - Beatoraja, heres a good English guide to it
- Neat thing about BMS is that all of the music is made or licensed/allowed for it. The community is strictly against charting copyrighted songs, partially due to them requiring keysounding.
Sound Voltex - Untitled SDVX Clone
Guitar Hero - Clone Hero

Note that some of these require or are improved by an additional controller, so they’re not entirely free but once you have what you need you’re set.

Trackmania 2020, you can do the seasonal campaign, ranked and royal for free, and it's a fun as hell game with a great community. There's more if you pay, but theres many hours of game play for free and it isn't time limited at all.

Does require ubisoft connect, but that's also free.

Old School Runescape is still a pretty chill free MMO to play. Granted, you have like maybe 5% of the content available to you, but you could still get a majority of your skills up to 99 and do a a decent amount of questing.

Shattered Pixel Dungeon is a great roguelike.

Tried this because of your comment. It's really fun!

Mindustry is definitely must try if you like factory and tower defense elements. It's free on itchi io and its available on f droid as well. The steam version is paid but it's just a way to support the dev so you're not missing out on any game feature. Has cross platform multiplayer as well with a lot of public servers you can jump in once you understand how to play the game.

Been playing a lot of mahjong in the past four years. Mahjong Soul is totally free if you ignore the gacha element. And if you really hate the anime aesthetic, there's Tenhou.

I feel a lot more motivated to sneak in a game or two every now and then because I know if Mahjong Soul ever goes down, my skills are fully transferable to other mahjong clients, and also offline.

GG to all my waifu jpegs if that happens though.

Battle for Wesnoth is a nice and polished turn based strategy game. You need to get used to the sometimes annoying rng hit system, but it can get addicting trying to protect a favourite unit, give them the last hits so they can level up and then faceroll the map.

Since you mention having free time, Dwarf Fortress, it's going to take a while to learn the game, but it's really rewarding when you have a whole fort running like clockwork with all your lil' dwarves running around, doing their tasks... Until something snowballs into chaos. You could also try roguelikes, there's an array of great, free ones like DCSS, Shattered Pixel Dungeon, DoomRL, Brogue, Tales of Maj'Eyal, Infra Arcana... The list goes on.

GOG has a bunch of free games that you can get. My personal favorite is Tyrian though.

Board Game Arena would be my recommendation. Amazing platform that keeps adding games (typically a new game is added every Wednesday). You can play real-time or turn-based, I almost exclusively play turn-based these days since it allows me to check the website whenever I have a few minutes of free time and play through my turns.

Realm of the Mad God, you either hate it or love it

Check out Ironsworn if you’re into ttrpg.

yeah i am i love that stuff.

You could give a try to chess, specifically on lichess.org

It's such a deep and beautiful game, so hard to master yet fun and challenging at any level of skill. Climbing the ranking ladder is a true challenge with yourself.

It's also an esport and a game that you can play at any age.

@dska22

@QuietStorm
If you’re into chess, you should try ImmortalGames. Blockchain based chess with collectible Nft pieces that pay in crypto. Tournament winners get paid in Eth and tradable chess piece nfts. Pieces pay extra for completing challenges (pawn stays alive; knight claims first capture;etc..). But really added a new outlook on how to change your game play for fun and crypto.
- Jfc, get your shitty cryptoshilling out of my horsey board game

PC: PolyCube. It's basically 3D Tetris. The controls take a little bit to get used to, but it's great once you wrap your head around it. Also an optional VR mode.

Mobile: 2048 Blocks. A 3D reimagination of 2048 where you roll a numbered cube down a lane (like bowling or bocce ball) to make it collide/combine with the cubes at the end of the lane.

Path of Exile. Some say it's the "true" spiritual successor to Diablo 2. Micro transactions are there but only cosmetic. I sunk many hours into that game...

Cosmetic and "ease of play", the most common recommended purchases are vault space and organization tabs that help give you more space and control over loot management.

I've jumped in this month for the first time and it's wonderful! And absolutely overwhelming. Everything is a system and has a learning curve. Everything.

It's wonderful value at this point! Coming up on a decade of quarterly updates worth of systems, mechanics, and updates. It's fantastic!

Super Tux Kart

A Mario Kart clone with linux mascots

Counter-Strike is a great free first person shooter. There is no pay to win in that game at all and never will be!

Warframe, League of Legends, Valorant, Legends of Runeterra, Genshin Impact, Epic Game Store freebies, I think Rocket League is f2p too now

Android:
Animation Throwdown - It's a card game, free to play with a pay to win element.
Flow Free - Connect the dots, but you can't cross lines. It reminds me of Snafu for Intellivision.
Scrambled Net - Turn tiles to connect every workstation to the server. Kind of like Pipes.

PC:
Archive.org - Everything in classic gaming is here.
Epic Store - They had some amazing giveaways over the past year, I hope they keep it up though I would not be disappointed if they did give me Civ VI.
Amazon Prime Gaming - If you're paying for Prime already, might as well get the most of it. They have done some amazing giveaways as well, including Fallout NV. They also give away addons for other games. Like a shirt or mount for World of Warcraft. Overwatch loot boxes.
Overwatch 2 - I'm not a fan and soured from the payed for OW1 and now can't play it crowd. It's there, its free. So is Fortnite and Among Us and Fall Guy

Steam - I'll give them a nod. They do give away free games "sometimes", but I've only ever seen indie games nothing of the AAA variety.

Teamfight Tactics is pretty fun and addicting

I just remembered Netflix includes a bunch of worthwhile mobile games if you’re into that

I loved "Stanger Things: 1984"
- Oxenfree’s another highlight and they just released a sequel it seems like no one knows about

Marvel Snap has pulled away most of my small downtime windows for the past few months.

Yes there are things you can buy in the game, but I haven't spent a penny on it and still have a blast.

S.T.A.L.K.E.R. Anomaly a sand-box survival FPS RPG set in a sci-fi version chernobyl, the game is actually a mod of the original S.T.A.L.K.E.R. trilogy games, which are loosely based on the novel Roadside Picnic (1972) and film "stalker" (1979). go check them out if you're interested or, just go blind in, it's tons of fun if you like this kind of stuff

It's very niche, but I used to really like Hades' Star. It's a mobile game (with a PC port available.) It uses timers and pay-to-rush (not pay-to-win) but it's designed as a long-haul game, so (IMO) the delays don't nag like they do in a game like Clash of Clans.

A big overhaul update is supposed to come out later this year, so you might consider checking it out in a few months.

One of the hundreds I already own.

Halo Infinite can be fun. Lots of custom games as well as matchmaking (steam, ms store)