Category: Buy-to-Play

Project Zomboid

Project Zomboid drops you into a sprawling zombie outbreak and asks you to survive as long as your planning, nerves, and luck will allow. Set across quiet Kentucky neighborhoods, it mixes scavenging, base fortification, skill training, and a surprisingly grounded approach to hunger, injury, weather, and panic. Whether you go it alone or join a player-run server, the core promise is the same, your story ends eventually, and the challenge is seeing how far you can push back that inevitable finish.

Publisher: The Indie Stone
Playerbase: Medium
Type: Survival
Release Date: November 8, 2013
Pros: +Deep crafting and building that stays easy to understand. +Tense, believable zombie survival atmosphere. +Highly adjustable sandbox settings for replay value.
Cons: -Limited visual customization for your survivor. -Top-down view can make PvP reads and aiming awkward. -Fighting can feel stiff, especially under pressure.

Ark: Survival Evolved

Ark: Survival Evolved drops you onto a beautiful, hostile island where the basics of survival, food, water, shelter, and warmth, are constant concerns. The twist is that the ecosystem is dominated by dinosaurs and other prehistoric creatures, and they are not just scenery. You will be gathering materials, crafting tools, building bases, and deciding whether to live quietly on the fringes or clash with other survivors for territory, tames, and resources.

Publisher: Studio Wildcard
Playerbase: High
Type: Survival
Release Date: June 2, 2015 (Early Access)
Pros: +Deep crafting and flexible base construction. +A large roster of creatures to fight, tame, and use. +Tribes and PvP create memorable player-driven stories.
Cons: -Very hardware intensive. -Few onboarding tools, learning can be rough. -Performance and stability can be inconsistent.

Rust

In Rust, survival is a constant scramble across a procedurally generated island where your next meal, your next tool, and your next mistake all matter. You start with nothing, then you gather, hunt, and craft your way toward shelter and weapons, all while knowing the most dangerous “wildlife” is usually another player. Staying alive means reading the environment, managing resources, and deciding when to hide, when to negotiate, and when to fight.

Publisher: Facepunch Studios
Playerbase: High
Type: B2P Survival Game
Release Date: December 11, 2013
Pros: +Deep and flexible base-building. +Procedurally generated server worlds. +Large, satisfying crafting catalog. +Frequent updates and iteration.
Cons: -Lack of onboarding makes early hours confusing. -Performance and stability can be rough. -Meaningful progress demands a big time investment.

Natural Selection 2

Natural Selection 2 blends tactical first-person shooting with real-time strategy decision-making in a gritty sci-fi setting. You can fight on the front line as a marine or alien lifeform, or step into the commander role to manage tech, place structures, and guide your team’s pushes and defenses across the map.

Publisher: Unknown Worlds Entertainment
Playerbase: Low
Type: Strategy FPS
Release Date: October 31, 2012
Pros: +Snappy, high-stakes firefights. +Engaging RTS-style commander layer. +Aliens feel meaningfully different to play.
Cons: -Extremely demanding for newcomers. -Occasional toxicity in public matches. -Tutorial does not prepare you well.

LEGO Worlds

LEGO Worlds takes the classic appeal of snapping bricks together and turns it into a procedurally generated sandbox, letting you roam bite-sized “playset” landscapes while building, collecting, and experimenting. It blends open-ended creation with light exploration and simple combat, so you can either treat it like a digital toy box or a laid-back adventure where every new world is a fresh pile of bricks to dig through.

Publisher: Warner Bros Games
Type: B2P Sandbox
Release Date: June 01, 2015 (Early Access)
Pros: +Flexible LEGO creativity tools. +Procedurally generated maps to explore. +Tons of unlocks and personalization.
Cons: -Controls can feel awkward. -Activities thin out over time, can get repetitive. -Camera quirks make precise building harder.

Diablo 3

Diablo 3 is a fast-paced action RPG built around constant combat, character builds, and the thrill of randomized loot. You pick one of six classes and carve through dungeons packed with demons, steadily unlocking skills and swapping loadouts to match your preferred style, whether that means close-range brawling or screen-filling spell damage.

Publisher: Blizzard Entertainment
Playerbase: High
Type: Action RPG
Release Date: May 15, 2012
Pros: +Seasonal competition and leaderboard chasing. +Deep skill options per class with flexible loadouts. +Excellent co-op for up to 4 players.
Cons: -Repetition is central to the endgame loop. -PvP is minimal and not a major focus. -No built-in tool for finding groups on demand.

Chivalry

Chivalry: Medieval Warfare is a multiplayer action title built around close-quarters brutality rather than ranged gunplay. You pick from four core classes, choose from a large armory of medieval weapons, and jump into chaotic matches where up to thirty-two players clash in objective sieges, arena brawls, and village raids. It is equal parts skill-based dueling and messy frontline mayhem, with plenty of blood to match its darkly comedic tone.

Publisher: Torn Banner Studios
Playerbase: Low
Type: Melee PvP
Release Date: April 4, 2014
Pros: +Over-the-top dismemberment and gore that sells the chaos. +Combat has real depth once you learn timing and spacing. +Objective modes create memorable, cinematic pushes.
Cons: -Community can be hostile at times. -Occasional stability issues and crashes. -Inconsistent hit detection can be frustrating.

Elder Scrolls Online

Elder Scrolls Online is a fantasy MMORPG that drops you into Tamriel during a turbulent era, with three alliances battling for dominance and plenty of room to play your character your way. You pick from multiple races and four base classes, then build out your approach through weapon lines, armor choices, and a flexible skill system that feels closer to a traditional Elder Scrolls toolkit than a rigid MMO role. Whether you spend your nights clearing delves, pushing objectives in large-scale faction warfare, or living as a wanted criminal in town, ESO is designed around freedom, consequences, and constant activities.

Publisher: Bethesda Softworks
Playerbase: High
Type: MMORPG
Release Date: April 4, 2014
PvP: Alliance Wars (Faction Wars)
Pros: +Quest decisions can alter local outcomes. +Action-oriented combat that rewards timing. +Crime play is supported with stealing and murder systems. +Cyrodiil offers broad, objective-driven PvP.
Cons: -Persistent bugs and oddities. -Very large download and storage footprint.

Windward

Windward is a nautical sandbox MMO built around roaming seas, taking jobs between ports, and steadily upgrading from a fragile starter ship into something capable of handling pirate fleets and faction skirmishes. It takes clear inspiration from Sid Meire’s Pirates!, but focuses on streamlined sailing and ship-to-ship combat rather than complex land systems. You can play it solo or join online servers where the map and faction conflict are generated fresh for each world.

Publisher: Tasharen Entertainment
Playerbase: Low
Type: Nautical Sandbox MMO
Release Date: May 12, 2015
Pros: +Works well as both a solo game and a multiplayer sandbox. +Very small install size with modest hardware demands. +Supports PvE progression and optional PvP modes.
Cons: -Mission variety and scenery can feel samey over time. -Early progression can feel unguided and slow.

Planetary Annihilation

Planetary Annihilation is a science fiction real-time strategy game built around one big fantasy, starting with a lone robotic Commander and scaling up into system-spanning warfare. You harvest resources, establish production, and overwhelm opponents with land, air, naval, and orbital forces, all while entire planets become part of the battlefield.

Publisher: Uber Entertainment
Playerbase: Low
Type: MMO RTS
Release Date: September 5, 2014
Pros: +Distinct, playful art direction. +Massive armies with huge on-screen unit counts. +Useful Picture in Picture view for multitasking.
Cons: -Onboarding is thin. -Longstanding bugs can surface. -Demanding learning curve for new players.