PC crew · Steam only · list updated July 2026

Four Steam worlds our crew never actually quits.

We're a small group of PC players out of Halifax who've been comparing builds and market prices since 2019. These are the four persistent, free-to-play worlds we keep re-installing — how to get started, what we've learned the hard way, and why each one still has a shortcut on our desktops.

See our top 4 Meet the crew
Who's writing this

Three players, one shared drive of screenshots

Delfontiax started as Priya's spreadsheet of games that wouldn't erase your progress in a server merge. Three of us keep it running now, on our own hardware, on our own time. We don't work for Valve, Grinding Gear Games, Sandbox Interactive, Jagex, or CCP — we just play a lot and write down what actually helps.

Read the full story

Priya Bhatt Path of Exile builds, EVE fits
Colton Fournier Albion market & guild logistics
Mireille Tanguay RuneScape completionist, keeps this site updated
Our top 4, right now

What's actually installed on our machines

Every game here is free forever on Steam — not a demo, not a free weekend. We checked monetization ourselves before writing a word.

Path of Exile combat screenshot showing a character fighting a large tentacled boss with green energy effects
01 / 04 Action RPG · MMO

Path of Exile

The one we keep theorycrafting builds for at 1am, ten years after release.

Grinding Gear Games 2013, free since launch Cosmetic & stash purchases only

How to play

Isometric dungeon-crawler with a real skeleton of an MMO underneath: a shared economy, seasonal leagues, and a passive skill tree the size of a subway map. You kill things, loot things, and slot skill gems into gear to build a character that plays however you want.

Tips & tricks

  • Don't buy stash tabs on day one — you start with several free ones, learn what you actually need first.
  • Pick one build guide and follow it fully for your first character. Mixing trees you don't understand yet is how runs die.
  • Trade through the official trade site, not general chat — saves hours over a weekend.
  • The campaign (Acts 1–10) is the tutorial. The real game is the endless "maps" after it.

The passive tree looks like it exploded and it will scare off anyone who doesn't want to open a wiki tab. That's genuinely part of the game.

Get it on Steam
Albion Online screenshot showing players and a large armored elephant mount near a walled town with guild banners
02 / 04 Sandbox MMORPG

Albion Online

Full-loot gear you can genuinely lose for good outside the safe zones.

Sandbox Interactive Free since 2019 Premium sub + cosmetics

How to play

You gather, craft, and fight to build your own gear in a player-run economy. Die in the wrong zone and someone else walks off with your inventory.

Tips & tricks

  • Stay in yellow zones (no full loot) until you understand risk versus reward.
  • Never wear gear you can't afford to lose — it's the whole community's unofficial motto.
  • Join a guild in your first week. Solo black-zone play is a rough way to learn the game.
  • Level one gathering profession first to fund your first real weapon set.

Without a premium subscription, market and loot fees eat into your silver — you can play free indefinitely, just slower.

Get it on Steam
RuneScape screenshot of a character exploring a moonlit ruined courtyard with a glowing tower in the distance
03 / 04 Fantasy MMORPG

RuneScape

The one where you can genuinely spend a whole weekend just fishing, and that's fine.

Jagex Since 2001, Steam 2020 Free tier + membership

How to play

Level 25+ skills at your own pace in an open fantasy world. Quests unlock most of the interesting content, not just grinding.

Tips & tricks

  • Finish the tutorial island fully — skipping parts leaves gaps in basic controls later.
  • Do quests early. They give better early experience than pure grinding, and unlock skills.
  • The Grand Exchange is your friend — don't hoard items you're not actively using.
  • Jagex permanently removed the "Treasure Hunter" loot-box promotion on January 19, 2026 — a real, recent cleanup we noticed and give them credit for.

The free tier is closer to a generous demo than the full game — expect a membership nudge once you're hooked.

Get it on Steam
EVE Online screenshot of two spaceships mining an asteroid field with laser beams
04 / 04 Space MMO Sandbox

EVE Online

One bad undock and you lose the ship. For real, permanently.

CCP Games Free Alpha clones since 2016 Omega sub + cosmetics, no crates

How to play

Pilot ships, mine, trade, or fight in one shared universe that never resets. Free Alpha clones can fly a solid range of ships; subscribing (Omega) unlocks the rest of the skill tree.

Tips & tricks

  • Run the career agent missions in your starter system before doing anything risky.
  • "Don't fly what you can't afford to lose" isn't a meme here — it's the actual rule.
  • Stay Alpha for a few weeks before subscribing. Find out if the game clicks first.
  • Join a corporation early — solo EVE is a noticeably harder, lonelier game.

Steam's own listing credits the publisher as "Fenris Creations," not CCP Games — an odd storefront quirk we're flagging rather than hiding. It's still CCP's EVE Online.

Get it on Steam
If we could only keep one

The crew's #1

EVE Online screenshot of a ship approaching a wormhole-like anomaly in deep space
The crew's #1

EVE Online

Nothing else on this list punishes and rewards you quite like EVE does. Every ship you fly is a real decision, every market order is someone else's plan working or falling apart, and the politics between player corporations are more dramatic than most scripted stories. It's slower to click with than the other three — but no other free game on Steam has kept Priya logging in for this many years running.

— the crew, still not over the null-sec fight from three winters ago

The obvious question

Why we don't make a cent off this

Every fan site eventually gets asked if it's secretly an ad. Ours isn't, and here's the actual breakdown instead of a one-line promise.

No affiliate links

Every button goes straight to Steam

Our "Get it on Steam" buttons are plain links to the official store page. No referral tag, no tracked redirect, no cut if you buy something later.

No codes, no keys

We don't sell or hand out keys

We're not a storefront or a key reseller. If a link ever asked you to buy a "cheaper" key somewhere else, it wouldn't be us — and we'd flag it as a scam.

No ads, anywhere

There is no ad slot on this site

No banner networks, no sponsored placements, no "recommended for you" boxes from a third party. What you see is what we wrote.

FAQ

Questions people actually ask us

Yes — we only list games marked "Free to Play" on Steam's own storefront, not demos, betas, or time-limited free weekends. We re-check the Steam listing before every update in case that ever changes.

No. There's no affiliate program attached to any Steam link on this site, no referral codes, and no advertising anywhere on delfontiax.com. See the full breakdown above — we'd rather over-explain this than have you wonder.

Honestly, because we didn't want to build the kind of site that needs it. This started as a private list for three people; keeping it small and ad-free means nobody's optimizing our opinions for click-through.

Every couple of weeks, not daily. We don't chase every single patch — if a game changes its monetization or a listing goes stale, we'd rather catch it a week late than publish something we haven't actually verified.

Every link on this site points only to the official Steam store page for that game. We don't host installers, mirrors, or third-party launchers. Steam's own platform handles the download and updates.