Steam has five games sitting behind a zero-dollar price tag right now, and the window closes September 14. Not a demo. Not a trial weekend. Download them, keep them.
The lineup is stranger than the usual free-game grab bag. A Mars colony sim, an F1 game with a season pack attached, a co-op heist shooter, a 64-player medieval brawler and the newest Borderlands. There’s no through line. That’s part of the fun.
If you were about to drop full price on something like The Blood of Dawnwalker this weekend, maybe hold off a few days.
Start with the weird black cubes
Surviving Mars: Relaunched first came out in November 2025, and it’s an award-winning sci-fi city builder where you’re in charge of recolonizing Mars. The remaster piles on content around exploration, infrastructure and the colonists you’re responsible for keeping alive.
The pitch from the store page sets the tone better than any review could: “All you need for this relaunched mission to create a thriving Martian settlement is a steady supply of resources, oxygen, decades of training, experience with sandstorms… and a curious attitude to discover the purpose of those weird black cubes that appeared out of nowhere. With a bit of sprucing up, this place is going to be awesome!”
So yes. There are cubes. Nobody knows why.
The F1 deal is the sneaky-good one
F1 25 comes bundled with its 2026 Season Pack, which is the part worth noticing. That means Audi and Cadillac, two brand-new teams, plus Liam Lawson, Isack Hadjar, Max Verstappen and the rest of the grid.
There’s a new track in Madrid and cars exclusive to the 2026 season. The base game landed in May 2025, so this isn’t some dusty back-catalog filler. It’s a current racing sim with its forward-looking DLC attached, for nothing.
For anyone feeling the GTA drought
Crime Boss: Rockay City is a 2024 co-op title built for one to four players, and it swings between careful stealth and full killing-spree combat depending on how your heist goes. FPS gameplay, a roguelike campaign structure, and voice acting that’s genuinely funny.
You and your friends rob your way into enough money to buy better weapons, build out an arsenal and hire new characters to bring along. If you’ve been staring at the Grand Theft Auto void, this fills a few evenings.
MORDHAU goes the opposite direction. Build a mercenary, then throw them into medieval battles with up to 64 other players, laying siege to castles and charging with cavalry. Fast combat, deep character customization, a massive weapon list, and gore. It plays online or offline.
And then there’s Borderlands 4
The newest entry in the franchise released in September 2025, which makes its presence on a free-games list the most surprising thing here.
You pick one of four Vault Hunters and start causing problems on a planet run by a ruthless dictator. Billions of guns, enemies and bosses designed to be dismantled in specific ways, and dialogue that knows exactly how stupid it’s being.
Five games, five wildly different moods, one deadline. Mars needs colonists, Madrid needs a lap record, and somewhere a castle gate is about to come down.
