It’s time for another “celebration” on Steam. It seems a bit like we have one of these every month or so these days, but they’re a great way to introduce players to games they may have missed and offer them some deals too. This time developers are taking part in the PvPFest, which started today. I won’t even bother counting the number of games involved in this event, but there are quite a few. Claro, there are the usual suspects: Vigilância, Marvel Rivals and the like. And of course, a majority of the games listed are buy-to-play games.

But we’re here to talk about free-to-play games. So I decided to take a look at the free-to-play offerings. Luckily, Steam was kind enough to create a separate tab with games in the F2P category. That’s why I used this when creating this list, meaning anyone interested can simply go to the same tab on the event page.

After looking through the F2P section, I narrowed things down by looking for games with a smaller number but fairly positive reviews. I then checked them against the Steam database to make sure they weren’t completely dead and only had a small audience. I know some of these offers because I’ve written about them before – even though it was probably a while ago. Others are new to me. Either way, if you’re looking for something a little different to play, you could try some of these out. As I mentioned earlier. F2P games only cost you the download time and HD storage space to try out.

Strinowa

Strinova is an anime-style third-person shooter released in 2024 that features mechanics that allow players to switch between three-dimensional and two-dimensional shapes to move around the map. This allows players to, for example, squeeze through cracks in walls and maneuver through otherwise inaccessible rooms.

I don’t remember the game’s release being that big. And it certainly doesn’t have as many reviews or players as other games. But based on SteamDB, the player base is fairly consistent and reviews on Steam are mostly positive.

City of Salem 2

This cartoon-style social deduction game is designed for 7 to 15 players and is set in the city of Salem. You know…the one with the witches. The game features more than 50 playable roles, each with their own abilities and goals.

As far as reviews go, “Town of Salem 2” isn’t doing too badly. No entanto, the number of players is not that high. At release, the game peaked at just under 4,000 players and currently manages an average of between 300 e 500 players. This isn’t necessarily a sign that the game is bad. It could simply be that it came out around the same time as many other social deduction games. It is still supported and recently received a backend update.

Century: Age of Ashes

Co-op kite fighting and racing. That’s the game. Actually, it’s more than just that. Century: Age of Ashes offers five different modes (4 PvP and 1 PvE). It also offers players the ability to choose a class and customize their dragons.

The game is currently in its third season, which introduced, among other things, the new rider class “Rimeblood” as well as a new map and story content

Admittedly, player numbers are the problem with this game. As of this writing, SteamDB says there are 31 players in the game. Maybe this will be increased during the PvP festival.

The Star of Hades

We’ve moved from dragons to space and from team combat to strategy. Hades’ Star is a space strategy game in which players build their own empire in space. Players have an entire, evolving galaxy to work with: establishing a presence, planning their economy, colonizing planets – all the things you do when building an empire in space.

As for PvP, the system has different types of stars that determine gameplay. Blue stars are stars that last for five minutes. During this time, five players can send a battleship to take part in a short battle burst to see who remains.

This is another extremely low count game. But since it’s a mostly single-player strategy game, that’s probably not the worst thing. PvP only requires five players and lasts a short time. So if everyone isn’t just busy building the empire in the game, it could work easily.

Skillshot City

Skillshot City is another game with solid reviews and low player counts. The PvP roguelite (also described in the same blurb as a GTA-style battle royale with no queues or downtime) has been around since 2017. It’s still running and there was even an update in January.

Unfortunately, the highest number of consecutive players there has been in the last year was around 60 about a week ago. Ainda, the game seems to offer some fun features and could be a good opportunity for players looking for something different.

War selection

As far as single-player RTS games with online PvP go, War Selection seems to be doing quite well. It has very positive reviews and the number of concurrent players is regularly between 300 e 1,000. Considering that the game’s record number was around 2,000 players, it is probably the least affected by player losses.

Admittedly, RTS games typically appeal to a certain type of player. Interestingly, even though the game is a single-player game, the developers seem to have spent more time on PvP content than many other games in the same genre. The game offers multiple modes including Survival, Match, Ranked Battle, Team Match, Tug of War and more. Some of the modes are both single player and PvP modes.

Unhappy space travelers

Look, I made a decision to put this here. Unfortunate Spacemen isn’t exactly outstanding at the moment. When I look at SteamDB, there are only 8 players in the game, and the 24-hour high is 28. The thing is, the space-based deception game has a good rating, and even among the negative reviews, there wasn’t much to work with. One complaint is simply that no one plays and that people seemed to be toxic when there were a lot of players.

But well, this post is about games you might have forgotten. Therefore, I of course give no guarantees regarding quality.

Onmyoji

How about a turn-based fantasy strategy with PvP as an option? Honestly, looking at the game, I imagine many who play Onmyoji just stick to PvE. No entanto, the game offers players the opportunity to engage in “semi-real-time battles” with each other by assembling a team and sending them into battle. Players also have the opportunity to invite their friends to duels.

Blood of Steel

Blood of Steel is intended for players interested in historical figures. Players take on the role of various generals and lead massive armies into battle. No entanto, there is also a lot of direct combat between players’ characters. So everyone gets involved in the chaos.

Unfortunately, it can be difficult to find players to compete against – unless you bring friends with you. Currently, SteamDB reports 10 players online with a 24-hour peak of 156 people.

Wheelchair assistants

It seems that the morality of wheelchair wizards is that everyone is equal when endowed with wizard powers. The 2D platform fighting game features 3 maps with more than 17 levels, tons of spells and upgrades. This game is also the smallest game in the list and takes up 200MB of space. So it will be easy to try it out with a few friends.