Winds of Valen is a free-to-play old-school MMORPG now on Steam

Fiery Dog Games’ Winds of Valen is out now on Steam as a free-to-play MMORPG, leaning hard into old-school progression and sandbox-style grinding. The pitch is pretty straightforward: open-world leveling, combat and crafting skills, and loot that has to be earned rather than handed out.

According to the game’s Steam page, it launched last November and has built up a Mostly Positive user rating so far. The game centers on non-linear progression, with skills like combat, mining, and smithing, plus monster-specific rare drops. One notable system is that those unique drops are shown openly and can change dynamically to help smooth out bad luck while farming.

Since launch, the game has picked up a few bigger additions, including archery, potion making, and fishing. Fiery Dog has also added a PvP area called the Darklands and made combat pathing improvements.

The short-term roadmap points to a few more major features still on the way. According to the developer roadmap post, magic, high-level content, and a smithing rework are all planned next.

If you like MMORPGs that expect a lot of time and repetition from players, Winds of Valen seems to know exactly who it’s for. It’s available now on PC through Steam.