Electronics & Gadgets

How to get paid-for PC games FREE every week

Rob Zak

Features Writer

30 July 2025

With the latest blockbuster games hitting price tags of £70 to £80, there’s really no reason to rush out and buy them when a) they'll be half that price in a few months, and b) so many great games are regularly given away for free. I'm not talking about obscure indie projects either (though some are brilliant), but modern premium games that are normally full-price and are being given away for a limited time.

So here are six sites, subreddits, and platforms you should visit regularly if you want to fill up your games library with quality titles for free. WARNING: This blog might cause your gaming backlog to grow uncontrollably.

Caution. Please read the safety notes in the sections on Itch.io and Reddit to ensure you're using them safely. And please also see the note on abandonware.

1. Epic Games Store

In 2018, games publisher Epic launched a digital storefront with the goal of rivalling the biggest PC gaming platform Steam. A big part of its strategy to attract gamers has been to give away one or more (usually full-price) games for free each week. Several years on, it’s not looking likely that Epic will topple Steam any time soon, but its weekly giveaways continue on Epic Games Store and its PC app.

The giveaways refresh every Thursday at 4pm, and at some times of year (such as Christmas), it even gives away a different game every day for a set period. You can also now get free games via Epic's Android and iOS mobile apps. It's given away some high-quality titles on mobile (many of which are also PC games) such as Super Meat Boy Forever, Star War: Knights of the Old Republic, and Chicken Police.

At the time of writing, my free Epic Games Store library sits at over 300 games (most of them gathering digital dust, inevitably). That’s comfortably over £2,000 worth, with some very high-quality games in there, including Sid Meier’s Civilization VI: Platinum Edition, Dead Island 2, Dishonored, and Kingdom Come: Deliverance.

The Epic Games Store is where you'll find the highest quality (and value) of games being given away for free.

2. Amazon Prime

One of the lesser-known perks of an Amazon Prime subscription is that each month it gives away a slew of PC games for 'free' via Prime Gaming*. Some of these are redeemable through digital storefronts GOG.com and Epic Games Store, while others you play through the free Amazon Games app.

You need a Prime subscription to redeem the games (£95 a year or £8.99 a month, but newbies can get it free for 30 days), but once you redeem them they’re yours to keep forever even if your membership expires. You can also redeem the games during a free trial period for Prime. Alternatively, keep an eye on Reddit, where gamers sometimes give away their codes.

The games up for grabs are a mostly high-quality mix of old and new, obscure and famous. In the past it's given away relatively modern games such as the Mafia trilogy, Lego Lord of the Rings, Marvel’s Midnight Suns, and Saints Row IV, as well as classics like Thief, Baldur’s Gate, BioShock, and Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic.

Amazon gives away plenty of indie titles too. At the time of writing, for example, you could get the critically acclaimed Stray God: The Roleplaying Musical, which only came out a couple of years ago, for free.

3. IsThereAnyDeal

IsThereAnyDeal is a handy site for savuing money on PC games as it scours storefronts to find the best prices. You can set alerts based on target prices (such as ‘historical low’ or when it drops by a specified percentage) for the titles you want, and as soon as they hit those prices you’ll receive an email or notification.

For free games, it has a dedicated giveaways page that keeps track of freebies (including those on Epic Games Store), so keep your eye on it to grab them as they pop up.

4. Itch.io

Itch.io is a largely unmoderated platform for independent game developers, giving them a space to showcase their new creations. The games are small budget, but many that debuted on it have gone on to become fully-fledged (and in some cases very successful) titles released across multiple platforms.

Itch.io alumni include the likes of Night in the Woods, Celeste and Doki Doki Literature Club, so there’s always a chance you might discover the next big thing through it. You can even find games that have already received wider release, such as Brutal Legend (starring a guitar-wielding Jack Black), which was recently given away for free on the platform.

There are over a million free games on Itch.io, and you can whittle down the selection by sorting them by popularity and rating, and also by setting filters for things such as genre, platform, multiplayer features and session length.

Safety note. While most developers use Itch.io in good faith, you're still effectively downloading files that other people upload and as such should exercise caution. (For more on protecting your computer, see Free antivirus software.)

One good way to minimise risk is to read the comments on a given game to see if people have picked up on anything suspicious, and stick to downloading games that have a lot of ratings, which means that plenty of played them.

Also, Itch.io can sometimes feature NSFW (Not Safe for Work) or adult games. The site has recently increased moderation on this front, making sure that NSFW games are harder to find and don't just pop up on the homepage. Itch.io has also started banning more games that violate its content policy. But, they are there.

5. Reddit

With so many free games to choose from, you might want to get a better idea of which ones are worth grabbing (after all, there's not much fun in having a library full of games you don’t want to play). Over on Reddit, there are a couple of excellent communities. Between them, r/FreeGameFindings and r/GameDealsFree post almost every free game promotion available.

You’ll find the usual games given away on Epic Games Store and Prime Gaming here, but these communities also uncover free giveaways on Steam, as well as other limited-time giveaways. For example, one user recently showed how to claim one of several fairly recent games – including Assassin’s Creed: Mirage and Total War: Warhammer III – by signing up to Intel’s Software Advantage Program (though sadly the offer has now expired).

If you miss the window for a game giveaway, keep an eye on that game's thread on these subreddits, because people who already own a game often give their extra codes away for free. This way, you can also grab games given away on Prime Gaming without needing a Prime subscription.

Safety note. These long-standing and trusted subreddits (forums, essentially) are moderated by both bots and people, so generally the content they link to is legal and safe. But when you read a thread for a giveaway, as an extra precaution, do read the comments before clicking through to see what other people say about it.

You'll generally be clicking through to reputable sites, but in the unlikely case that your browser warns you that a given site isn't safe, you should heed that warning and not click through. More info on protecting your Mac or PC in Free antivirus software.

6. Steam

As the most popular gaming platform on PC, Steam has a huge selection of free games. Unfortunately, there isn't a dedicated section for ‘free’ games – instead there's a free to play section. This bundles together games that are 100% free with games that are, as the title suggests, free to play but will encourage you to spend money via optional in-game purchases (also known as microtransactions).

That said, some of the free-to-play games are excellent. Titles such as Destiny 2, Team Fortress 2, Apex Legends, Counter-Strike 2, Paths of Exile, and PUBG: Battlegrounds are all free to play, and even though they offer in-game purchases (mostly in the form of cosmetics, skins, and costumes), you don’t need to pay to enjoy these games in full.

There are nearly 12,000 games in the free to play section, so you can narrow your search using tags like ‘single-player’, where you'll find such titles as The Sims 4, eFootball (formerly Pro Evolution Soccer), and Crusader Kings II.

‘Free to play’ is a broad umbrella, especially on Steam, so be warned that some games are effectively extended demos (looking at you, Age of Empires III: Definitive Edition) where you’ll eventually need to pay if you want the whole experience. Sift through the titles, however, and you'll find some gems.

What about abandonware? While hunting for free games, you may come across 'abandonware' – old games where the copyright isn't being actively enforced. This typically happens when a developer or publisher shuts down, merges, or changes hands, leaving it unclear who owns the rights. Or when a game is no longer available to buy through any legal channel, indicating that the intellectual property (IP) holder has no commercial interest.

These games can easily be found for 'free', but abandonware is technically piracy. Sites that host them often operate in good faith, removing titles if they return to commercial availability. Their justification is preservation — they see it as archiving works of digital art that would otherwise vanish.

But make no mistake, under UK (and most international) copyright law, these games remain protected for decades. So even if the rights-holder is inactive, uninterested, or unknown, downloading abandonware is still legally risky.

For more on cutting the cost of gaming, see Make money playing mobile games, our Gaming deals, and the Gaming MoneySaving MSE Forum board.