None of these are ours. They are four free-to-play browser games made by other studios, chosen because each one rewards a different kind of patience: a railway network, a siege, a car you keep rebuilding, a dungeon that never runs out.
All four open in the tab you are reading this in. No installer, no launcher, no client to keep updated. Each entry says what the game is, what it does well, how long a sitting lasts and what it costs.
There are hundreds of browser games and most round-ups tell you nothing about any of them. Four is enough to pick from and few enough to have actually played. The bar was:
A strategy game that is really about one question: can you get through a wall faster than someone can get through yours. Everything else - resources, troops, alliances - is in service of that.
A century of railways compressed into a few weeks: lay track, run freight, corner a commodity and watch the whole server's economy tilt. Competitive in a way that never involves shooting anybody.
Click, kill, pick up a slightly better axe, repeat on a harder setting. It knows exactly what it is and does not pretend otherwise, which is most of its charm.
You build the car, then find out what you got wrong when something shoots the wheels off it. Half workshop, half demolition derby, and the workshop half is the good one.
Start with the third column. These games are separated by how often they expect you, far more than by genre.
| Game | Genre | A typical sitting | Device |
|---|---|---|---|
| Combat Siege | Siege Strategy | 10 to 20 minutes | Desktop and laptop. |
| Rail Nation | Railway Tycoon | A few checks a day | Desktop, laptop and tablet. |
| Drakensang Online | Action RPG | 20 to 40 minutes | Desktop and laptop. |
| Crossout | Vehicle Combat | 15 to 30 minutes a match | Desktop and laptop. |
All four are free to open and free to keep playing. All four also sell something: a premium account, a faster timer, a part, a currency. That is how they are paid for, and calling them simply free would leave out the half you need to know.
What mattered to us is whether each is still worth playing without spending. All four are. What money buys here is mostly time you would otherwise wait out. Decide the amount before the shop, not in it.
A browser game is the only kind that follows you between machines without carrying a file. There is a trade behind that:
Rail Nation. It explains itself as you go, a round has a clear end, and competing over freight contracts turns out to be far more gripping than it sounds. If you want something settled tonight, Crossout gets you into a match in minutes.
No. All four are browser games. One or two have an optional standalone client, which you can ignore.
They open on a phone, but they were built for a pointer and a wide screen. Treat mobile as a way to check in, not to play properly.
Usually, since the game has to keep your progress somewhere. It is a free account on the developer's own site, unrelated to anything here.
Free to start and free to continue. Each one sells optional extras, which is how it is funded. None of them hides the actual game behind a purchase.
Nothing, beyond the people who wrote it. These four are other studios' work, listed because they are worth an evening.
Four free-to-play browser games, written up by the people who run this site. None of the four belong to us.