Dota 2

If you’re looking for a game to really sink your teeth into, Dota 2 is probably your best bet: I spent dozens of hours trying to master Valve’s MOBA, and barely scratched the surface. While your goal is straightforward—lead your creeps and team to the enemy base, so you can destroy a large structure known as the ancient—the depth and intensity that Dota 2 offers is staggering. It’s a great game for people with a competitive streak, provided you can keep your cool under pressure. 

Steam Link: Dota 2

 Paladins

Everyone compare Paladins to Overwatch, and there’s a good reason for it: this free-to-play shooter does share some overt similarities, especially when it comes to character types. That dude up there, for example? You guessed it, he’s kinda like Reaper. What sets Paladins apart is that it is also heavily influenced by MOBAS. Once you pick a champion, you can’t change it. Each champion has a card loadout that influences abilities, and as you progress through a match, you gain currency to further upgrade your skills. You’ll still be capturing points and moving the payload, but Paladins offers more control over how you play. Worth noting: the game is in beta right now. 

Steam Link: Paladins

Team Fortress 2

It may not get as much press as it used to, but Team Fortress 2 is still a popular team-based shooter with way too many hats. Even if you’ve played it before, it’s always nice to jump in every once in awhile. TF2 might be nearly a decade old, but it holds up pretty well. There’s a reason it’s so influential! 

Steam Link: Team Fortress 2

Hawken

When it comes to the pure escapism of videogames, few things are as empowering as jumping into a powered-up mech and fighting it out with other players like a bunch of jacked-up gunslingers. Hawken has this cool factor in spades, with its mixture of classic match types (team death match, capture the flag, etc) all given a new lease of life thanks to the fast-paced action of Hawken’s mech-based firefights.

There are nine maps to choose from and a matchmaking system that slots you into lobbies full of players of similar experience level. However, the players at the top of the rankings have earned their lofty perches, so you’ll want to spend some time learning how to rack up kills with us mere mortals before testing your mettle against Hawken’s elite.While its new developer Reloaded Games (the old one folded back in 2015) has been a little light on the foreseeable update front, Hawken still remains one of PC gaming’s most addictive and rewarding games in the free-to-play/freemium bracket. 

Steam Link: Hawken

Planetside 2

Sci-fi warfare writ large, with three massive factions battling for supremacy

There aren’t many shooters on this list of the best free-to-play games on Steam, mainly because the one’s you probably hear about most often are the ones with the loudest advertising campaigns (and price tags to match), but that doesn’t mean free automatically equals terrible. Take Planetside 2, one of the most ambitious shooters ever made, and it’s right here on PC just waiting to be played.

So what makes Planetside 2 so good? For a start it’s a game that manages to recreate the hectic, brutality of a battlefield by having thousands of players engaging one another on a single map. As one of three factions, the goal is simple: win territory and destroy your enemies. 

Steam Link: Planetside 2

War Thunder

There are plenty of MMOs and battle simulators out there that are free-to-play on PC – World of Tanks being a very popular alternative - but there’s something about the vast spectacle of War Thunder's recreation of vehicular mayhem that feels that bit more real and believable. From battles on land to dogfights in the sky, all the way to duels across the swell of the ocean, War Thunder makes vehicular combat feel downright operatic.You can adjust the controls of each WW2 and Korean War vehicle to increase varying levels of realism, enabling you to take to the skies, the seas or the churned mud of the battlefield and start trading shells with other players in huge maps filled with action. There’s plenty of fresh content too, from the addition of ships from the age of fighting sail to the expansion of forces such as the now complete Japanese Imperial Army. Now, stop reading and go enlist… for free! 

Steam Link: War Thunder