The end of May and June has become the prime time for game publishers to release a bunch of trailers and announcements for their upcoming releases. Expectations are always high, and the biggest publishers tend to go all-in to increase the anticipation for their most expensive new creations. In 2025, across the Summer Game Fest and surprise State of Play, plenty of triple-A games were unveiled.
Game of Thrones: War for Westeros and a new Annapurna Interactive release were easily the most intriguing of a somewhat lacklustre Summer Game Fest. Sony’s signature presentation, on the other hand, was teeming with intriguing announcements. 007 First Light, Nioh 3, and Pragmata all have the potential to be major hits. However, all of these will be costly, so it was nice to see a good amount of news on free games, too.
Broader Adoption of Larger Free Experiences
Free-to-play and freemium gaming haven’t always seen in the best light historically. Yet, with competition in this corner of gaming being so high now, developers are forced to create compelling experiences. If they want success, there has to be lots of great gameplay in place in order to encourage players to see it as being worthy of their money. With triple-A games now, if you buy a game digitally and it turns out to be a dud, you’re usually stuck with it.
The angle of offering a total gaming experience with some freemium options thrown in is what underpins many of the top games that contribute to the roughly $120 billion made by free-to-play games worldwide each year. League of Legends, DOTA 2, and any number of popular battle royale/FPS franchises embody this approach.
It’s a model that’s rubbed off on iGaming, too, a field which once entirely relied on players paying to play. This comes by way of the evolution from fully-fledged online casinos into social and sweepstakes casino gaming. Somewhat analogously to video games, the social casino vs sweepstakes comparison essentially boils down to the difference between the use of entirely virtual currencies in games and the ability to win more tangible prizes.
For instance, social casino sites like Slotomania offer a diverse range of games for free where all currency earned can only be used within the platform itself, much like points earned in video games which can be used to unlock bonus levels and items. Sweepstakes coins, however, could be exchanged for real-world prizes, similarly to how schemes like Xbox Rewards allow players to put some points earned in-game towards full-on game purchases. Both have been successful at giving players interesting new ways to play, which could be taken as a good omen that in the iGaming industry too, social casinos should be much more likely to stay free-to-play.
A Flurry of Exciting Free-to-Play Announcements
Quite possibly the most impressive of the free-to-play announcements being put out through the early summer months of 2025 was Sea of Remnants. The oceanic adventure RPG coming to mobiles, PlayStation, and PC is set in an open world, features naval combat, and has hundreds of characters to team up with or make enemies of. The puppet-like aesthetic offers some extra charm to what looks to be a promising and expansive experience.
There’s also the latest challenger to the monster-catching RPG throne with Aniimo, which has opened up closed beta signups and will launch as a free-to-play game in 2026. Much closer to home, Mecha Break finally got its full release date set in, which will be 1 July, at which pin the multiplayer extraction shooter looks to shake up the scene with its novel setting. Plus, the Summer Game Fest was punctuated by the launch release of battle royale in Splitgate 2.
Developers are increasingly seeing the benefit of crafting fully-fledged games for the free-to-play market, and it’s having a far-reaching impact across industries. These latest announcements highlight this broader change in sentiment.
