7 Free Steam Games Better Than Expensive Blockbusters

Christmas is over and, with it, Steam's latest Winter Sale. Gone are the huge discounts and it's “Auf wiedersehen” to those massive developer collections.

Instead of the promise of December, with it's brisk air, twinkling lights and 90% off price tags, we move reluctantly into January. The brisk air becomes cold and wet, twinkling lights become dark commuter mornings, and the discounts have been packed back up again until the summer.

Fortunately, there are a huge number of free-to-play games on Steam, with quantity and quality growing year on year. Whether you're an FPS master, an RTS strategist or the next Pep Guardiola, you don't need to shell out £50 for the latest AAA release. Steam offers a huge array of free titles equivalent to some of gaming's biggest hits.

All you need to do is download and install... and possibly resist a few in-game purchases.

The selection is massive, so check out what Steam has to offer, but here are a few favourites that are just as good as recent AAA titles.

Play Instead Of: STEEP

December saw the release of Ubisoft's Steep; an online open-world extreme snow sports game that sees you ski, board, glide or even wingsuit yourself down a massive, explorable mountain.

However, before you part with your money, jump on another ski lift and ride it free of charge up another mountain - Sialia of SNOW.

Okay, so you can't pull on a wingsuit or strap onto a paraglider, but SNOW offers almost everything else, with superb graphics and a realistic physics engine. The mountain is huge, fully explorable, and full of hidden ruins and towns to discover, as well as a multitude of routes to master on skis or snowboard.

There is a huge catalogue of items on offer to customise your rider, but even better, you can customise the mountain! Set up new routes for you and your friends to challenge each other, or strategically place props and jumps so you can uncover previously inaccessible areas of the mountain.

The game is Early Access, so some of the animations are still a work in progress, but game support is high and the multiplayer community is growing. Whether you want to challenge friends for the fastest time to the finish line or free roam to discover new playgrounds, SNOW offers a ski-resort holiday without having to spend a penny.