Coming to our third week of Friday’s Free Games, we have a surprising assortment of AAA goodies! Jurassic World Evolution 2 is free, Cities: Skylines is free-to-play this weekend, and there is a big community mod for Half-Life 2 owners as well!
Those should pique the interest of a lot of players, and we’ll get to them in just a moment! In the meantime, here’s what we have for the week. I hope you find something fun:
- Cute Games
- Big Releases
- Hack and Slash Action
- Retro-inspired Collection
- Infrablack Games on Itch.io
- SoowekGames on Itch.io
- Strategy
- Summary
Cute Games
A short, cute, and relaxing exploration game where you gather items and turn them in to someone else. A lot of people mentioned how it is a sweet, short game that can be completed in about 15 minutes.
A cute, casual, kid-friendly tower defense game where you defend yourselves against an insect invasion using a herd of dinosaurs. Reviewers say that the soundtrack is really good as well! This game looks really adorable, I must say!
Big Releases
This week’s Epic Games Store title is a big one! In it, you can develop your own Jurassic Park or play through what-if scenarios based on events from the different movies. Looks impressive!
Cities: Skylines Free-to-play Weekend!
One of the most popular City Planning games out there! Now it is available to try for free for the weekend! Check it out if you want. Just know that it has a ton of expensive DLC if you get into it.
This is actually free DLC for owners of Half-Life 2. It is a remaster of the legendary Half-Life 2 with ray tracing, remastered assets, and DLSS 4 with Multi Frame Generation. Before you get super excited, it is only for 2 chapters of the game, has a number of bugs, and doesn’t run well for many players. 40 series Nvidia users may have a great time though!
Hack and Slash Action
Another week, and another isometric hack and slash action game. This one takes place in a museum filled with corrupted automata and features a fully modular weapon customization system.
Retro-inspired Collection
For real old school fans like me, you may want to check into this. It’s a three-pack of the creator’s Newgrounds games. One is a dodging game like Game and Watch, a second one is like Whack a Mole, and a third is a platformer with collectathon aspects like Namco’s Mappy!
Infrablack Games on Itch.io
Infrablack Digital Industry Games on Itch.io
This one is tough to explain because it is a lot more than one game. It’s a whole group of developers that have made a multitude of different titles, many of which include horror elements. Although I avoid gore and horror, I must admit that these people have talent! Some of you may want to check these titles out.
SoowekGames on Itch.io
A short, 30-minute dungeon crawler with randomly generated labyrinths and enemies. It was the developer’s first title!
A third-person action shooter where you are exploring a military facility in search of medicine that cures all diseases. The game isn’t for me, but it is clear that a good deal of effort was put into it.
This seems to be an adventure title based on the legend of the Wyvern of Czersk, which I had never heard of before. Apparently, it has a Slavic atmosphere and is loosely based on events from the 16th century. I like the premise!
Strategy
Ok, so this is a real-time third-person tower defense game where you directly walk around on the battlefield as a character and build or upgrade turrets and other weapons from that perspective. It doesn’t seem to have an overhead view. I like the originality of the perspective!
This is the playable prologue to an upcoming full game. It’s a game with a turn-based battle system where you control a party of four heroes going on a journey to fight evil. It is rated as Very Positive on Steam!
This is a post-apocalyptic turn-based strategy game for up to four players with the ability to upgrade troops and develop new technologies. The reviews sound suspicious, though. They talk about “If you think you can just breeze through this, think again” quite often.
Summary
I think the biggest surprise this week was the multitude of “Big” titles, with the Jurassic World game, Cities: Skylines, and Half-Life 2 RTX. I’m not used to that many AAA-related games available at once for free! Moving on from those, the diversity of multiple free games from different development houses on itch.io was impressive to see. Personally though, the games I’d like to play the most are actually the kid’s games! Cobble and Dinos TD look like real winners!
What about yourself? Are you going to get any of these? Let me know in the comments below. Thanks for reading!
Cheap Retro Gaming 
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