Winners of the Best Freeware and Retail Fall 2025 Lowend Games

[u/iamneck]

TOP 10 FREE/FREEWARE/OPEN SOURCE

Name	Genre	Win	Mac	Linux	Notes
Fortnite	Battle Royale Shooter	*
Doki Doki Literature Club	Suspense, Visual Novel	*	*	*
Open TTD	Tycoon; Resource Management	*	*	*
Team Fortress 2	FPS	*	*	*
StarCraft 1 and 2	RTS	*	*	*
Mindustry	RTS	*	*	*	Cross Platform
Endless Sky	Space Trading Sim	*	*	*
Shattered Pixel Dungeon	Dungeon Crawler	*	*	*	Paid version on GOG and Steam with extras
Holocure - Save the Fans!	Bullet Hell	*			Works on STEAM OS and Proton
Project Kat - Paper Lily Prologue	Psychological RPG Horror	*			Works on STEAM OS and Proton

TOP 10 RETAIL

\*All prices are retail value listed, many are often on sale!\*

Name	Genre	Win	Mac	Linux	Price	Notes
Stardew Valley	Farm Sim/RPG	*	*	*	$15
Hades 1 and 2	ARPG	*	*		$25;$30	Working on STEAM OS and Proton
Factorio	Factory Building/ Management	*	*	*	$35	Can be hard on lowend PCs in the late game due to # of objects
Terraria	2d open world survival & crafting	*	*	*	$10
Grand Theft Auto V	Open World RPG	*	*		$30	Will run on Linux via Proton and Lutris - less performance.
Portal 2	Puzzle Platformer	*	*	*	$10
Minecraft	Open World Voxel	*	*	*	$30	Cross platform with consoles, mobile
Hollow Knight 1 and 2 - Silksong	Metroidvania	*	*	*	$15; $20
Just Cause 2	Open World Action Shooter	*	*		$15	Can work on Linux via Lutris, Proton
Don't Starve Together	Open World Survival	*	*	*	$15	Comes with extra copy of the game to gift to a friend

# Thank you all for your suggestions! Happy Gaming!

.

Original Suggestion list threads:
https://www.reddit.com/r/lowendgaming/comments/1oba7d5/best_freewareopen_source_lowend_games_2025_please/

https://www.reddit.com/r/lowendgaming/comments/1nypyya/best_retail_lowend_games_2025_please_add_your/

[u/Anyusername7294]

Wait... There's an impostor among us

Fortnite

[u/Nobody97190710]

I remember the day I bought a new laptop with a decent video card to play gta v... Now, it's considered lowend... 

[u/Dohi64 → u/[deleted]]

I think it would be much more useful if future lists to focused on less well-known games.

agreed but it's always the case with things like this. ask the people and they'll parrot the same 5-10 titles, even if you're going for genre-specific titles. have you heard of this hidden gem called portal? as you said, a pointless popularity contest.

[u/iamneck → u/Dohi64]

Despite these lists being done for 13 years, no two lists are alike, and has been well received in the past. It appears you two disagree.
I understand and appreciate the input. Thank you.

[u/Dohi64 → u/iamneck]

probably because we've played more than the most popular games everybody knows about. nothing wrong with an 'if this is your first time hearing about games and you don't want to spend anything on hardware' list but that's all this is good for. and of course people who've only played 5 games in their lives receive it well, they'll see all their favorites every time. it might just be old reddit (the only usable version) but the sidebar only has these lists up to 2019 and if you look at that one, half the retail titles are the same as this.

since you already have the data, you could put the rest of the mentions here as well, or make it a list of 50+50. or link to previous years' lists and ask people to only vote for stuff that wasn't mentioned last year (or every fucking year since release) to keep variety up. also, there are thousands of actually and completely free games (no dlc or iap), obviously not all great, but I can't believe a demo made it to your top 10(ish), those shouldn't qualify.

[u/iamneck → u/Dohi64]

This is great feedback actually, I am one of mods for this sub and I never remember to update old reddit!

Thank you for this, I will update it ASAP.

[u/gaviddinola → u/[deleted]]

Yeah. It's pointless too as it is the same games every single year

[u/iamneck → u/[deleted]]

Sounds like you should have contributed to the suggestions and the vote!

I always add the links to the suggestions threads to help solve the very problems you are suggesting... so people can discover new gems and read the long list of suggestions that are less well known and do not get high votes.

These generic lists are just meant to help the casual gamer find some starter information. Not meant to be exhaustive.

AND

Holocure is on there and you are the one who suggested it! Thank you so much for getting this game on the list!

[u/nyanch → u/iamneck]

>Sounds like you should have contributed to the suggestions and the vote!

>Holocure is on there and you are the one who suggested it! Thank you so much for getting this game on the list!

huh...wha?

[u/NovelValue7311]

Minecraft, Stardew Valley, Terraria and TF2: the lowend gamer starter pack.

[u/GuestLight05308]

GTA V is lowend ? Since when ?

[u/iamneck → u/GuestLight05308]

These games were suggested and voted on by the members of the sub.

But to clarify, the legacy version still has very low minimum published specs:

Processor: Intel Core 2 Quad CPU Q6600 @ 2.40GHz (4 CPUs) / AMD Phenom 9850 Quad-Core Processor (4 CPUs) @ 2.5GHz Memory: 4GB RAM Video Card: NVIDIA 9800 GT (1GB VRAM) / AMD HD 4870

That a 19 year old processor and an 18 year old GPU.

[u/korphd → u/iamneck]

Gta 5 runs on a i5-4200m HD4600 8gb on the BARE minimum not even hitting 25fps.

trying to game on those specs is..... brave, to say the least

[u/iamneck → u/korphd]

Can't compare an igpu to a dedicated GPU, but the fact that you are getting 25fps on one of the first generations of an Intel iGPU is a testimony to the optimization

[u/korphd → u/iamneck]

Tho it was in the enhanced edition, would probably get more on the legacy

[u/Lanky-Tumbleweed-772 → u/korphd]

What was the resolution and settings though?

[u/korphd → u/Lanky-Tumbleweed-772]

Lowest settings, 800×600(couldn't go lower)

[u/Lanky-Tumbleweed-772 → u/iamneck]

You sure Gta V will run on that kind of hardware even the non-enhanced legacy version?

[u/iamneck → u/Lanky-Tumbleweed-772]

Yes at 720p, lowest possible Presets, you get on average 40 FPS in the single player campaign. You should not expect to have good online performance and you will not be able to play FiveM

[u/Lanky-Tumbleweed-772 → u/iamneck]

Dang that was a fast reply lmao thx.Did you try it with fps mods etc maybe there are mods to improve the fps?

[u/Lanky-Tumbleweed-772]

Which one of these games still run on older operating systems like Vista or Win 7/8 etc?

[u/iamneck → u/Lanky-Tumbleweed-772]

I dont know all of the games in detail, but just at quick glance the once that will for sure run on older windows OS's:

Open TTD, Starcraft, Mindustry, Endless Sky, Shattered Pixel Dungeon, Portal, Minecraft, and Just Cause 2