The 20 Best Free PC Games

ExtremeTech has taken the time to spotlight twenty PC games that are available for the unbeatable price of… free. Dungeon Runners, Savage 2, and Dwarf Fortress all score mentions:

The full name of this game is Slaves to Armok God of Blood, Chapter II: Dwarf Fortress, but everyone just calls it Dwarf Fortress. It has been in development for six or seven years and was formally released about three years ago, and in fact, it is still not considered “completed.” Despite the ASCII-like text character visuals and obtuse keyboard-only commands, it remains quite popular.

The world is randomly generated prior to each game with a pretty sophisticated fractal system. In the main Dwarf Fortress mode, you start with 7 dwarves (how’d they come up with that number, we wonder?) to whom you must assign duties as they construct their subterranean fortress. Build and defend your fortress, produce food, trade with traders, and more.it’s really rather complicated. There’s an adventurer mode which lets you run around as an individual character in typical “Roguelike” fashion. This mode is rather basic, compared to extreme complexity and sophistication of the Dwarf Fortress mode. If you can get past the 1980 visuals, climb the steep learning curve, and navigate the obtuse and unintuitive UI, you’ll be rewarded with a strategy game every bit as rewarding as Civilization or Sim City.