Free-to-play games come in many shapes and sizes. Battle royales and hero shooters are probably the most oversaturated in this day and age, but genres like MOBAs and MMOs are not going away anytime soon. The latter tend to have a few big names that dominate the scene, but they occasionally welcome new properties that manage to survive beyond a year or two.
Free open-world games are not extremely common, with most examples falling squarely in the MMORPG sphere. Simply put, these sorts of projects are huge investments for developers and publishers, so they rarely go the free-to-start route unless they are specifically focusing on multiplayer. Still, not every MMO is open-world, and the ones that do qualify cover a wide range of quality. What are the best free-to-play open-world games?
Updated May 26, 2024 by Mark Sammut: May 2024 has been a fantastic for free games, and that includes an open-world action RPG that might hit the spot with fans of Genshin Impact.
The rankings are not based solely on quality. For instance, a recently released project might take the top spot so it receives more exposure.
1 Wuthering Waves
New Open-World Action RPG With Fun Combat (& Gacha)
Wuthering Waves
- Released
- May 22, 2024
- Developer(s)
- Kuro Games
- Genre(s)
- Action RPG , Open-World
- Satisfying Combat
- Echo System
- Storytelling Can Be Confusing
- Rough Around The Edges
The new kid on the block, Wuthering Waves takes a few obvious hints from HoYoverse's playbook, to the point of mostly incorporating the same mechanics, just slightly tweaked. While not garnering too many points for originality, Kuro Games turned to these systems for a reason: they are popular. Wuthering Waves brings to life a post-apocalyptic setting where humanity has been pushed to the brink due to a phenomenon that has caused monsters to appear, and Resonators are the only people capable of taking on these threats. After picking a gender, players are cast as Rover, an amnesiac with a few unique Resonator abilities. Mostly a blank slate, the protagonist does not have much going for them beyond good designs for both genders; consequently, the campaign quickly pairs them up with a couple of characters who have bigger personalities.
Wuthering Waves: 7 Tips for Beginners
Here are some tips to make Wuthering Waves easier to grasp and efficient when starting as a beginner.
At the moment, Wuthering Waves is very much a mixed bag with plenty of positives and negatives. On the one hand, the real-time combat is fast-paced, satisfying, and relatively challenging. Unsurprisingly for a gacha game that wants to encourage rolling for new Resonators, players have access to a party of characters at any time, allowing them to switch between fights in the middle of battle (and swapping is promoted). Echoes are another neat mechanic that grants players an opportunity to pick up a defeated enemy's echo, which can then be equipped. Moving away from combat, Wuthering Waves becomes a bit more messy. While not terrible so far, the story is so front-loaded with exposition that conversations become tiresome rather quickly. The open-world looks decent, especially Huanglong, but is not extremely fun to explore at the moment, although that could change in the future.
Wuthering Waves has the potential to be a great free open-world game, but it is not quite there yet.
2 Warframe
Steam User Rating: 86%
Warframe
- Platform(s)
- PC , PS4 , PS5 , Xbox One , Xbox Series S , Xbox Series X , Switch
- Released
- March 25, 2013
- Developer(s)
- Digital Extremes
- Genre(s)
- Third-Person Shooter
- Great Combat
- Gorgeous Visuals
- Slow Start
Destiny 2 and Warframe are at each other's necks in dominating the open-world RPG market. Like Call Of Duty and Battlefield, they each do something very different from the other but are loved nonetheless by the same types of players. Warframe lets players choose from more than 30 different Warframes, which essentially make up the game's class system, and each gives a totally different gameplay experience from the other.
The open world of Warframe is beautifully crafted to immerse players in the galactic setting of the game. With plenty of different worlds, players surely have some time to invest in this free-to-play game.
3 RuneScape
Steam User Rating: 84%
Somehow, RuneScape is still thriving more than two decades following its debut. The MMORPG was one of the first of its kind on the market, and while hundreds of other games have shown up to take its place, precious few have had the longevity and appeal of RuneScape.
The RPG's calling card is its progression system that allows players to gain experience points through the execution of skills. It makes most actions feel purposeful, even if the combat itself is quite simplistic. The open-world offers a surprising amount of variety, although the free version does come with its share of restrictions that reduce the overall enjoyment of the experience.