No. 09 of 12 · Co-op action · checked September 2026
Warframe
FreeTwelve years of free updates have made Warframe vast and strange. Bring a friend who knows it, or become the friend who does.
Warframe is a third-person action game about biomechanical suits with extraordinary mobility: you slide, wall-run and bullet-jump through missions that take ten to forty minutes, alone or in a squad of four. Digital Extremes has been adding to it since 2013 without charging for any of it, and the result is a game with open worlds, a space combat layer, a story that becomes genuinely good after twenty hours, and a menu system that has confused every new player who has ever opened it.
That is the honest reason for the low “Easy to join” score. A newcomer does not know which planet to go to, why their weapon is weak, what a mod is or how to make the suit they saw a friend wearing. With a friend on the call it stops mattering: missions scale, a veteran carries comfortably, and the beginner still gets to bounce off walls and feel powerful. Without one, most people quit at hour three.
Technically it is the most complete game here. It runs on PC, PlayStation, Xbox, Switch and iPhone, all of which play together, and since the cross-save rollout finished in 2024 a single account carries everything across all of them. The business model is unusual too: the premium currency is tradeable between players, so a patient player can earn everything by selling parts they find, and the studio has kept that promise for over a decade.
The things to know are the ones you would guess. Some premium prices are high if you insist on buying rather than earning. The story is gated behind hours of play. And it is a PEGI 18 game, though the violence is stylised. For a group with one experienced player and three curious ones, it is a free evening that turns into a free year.
What works
- Free, with everything earnable in play
- Cross-play and cross-save on every platform, including phones
- Extraordinary movement that feels good from minute one
- Twelve years of free content
What to know first
- Explains almost nothing to a beginner
- Menus and systems take weeks to understand
- Premium prices are high if you do not trade
The first evening: four things to do
- Pick Excalibur and stop worrying
The starter suit is solid all the way through the story. The other two starters are fine too; the choice does not matter as much as the game implies.
- Follow the quests in the top-left, nothing else
The star chart is enormous. The quest marker is the only thing a newcomer should look at for the first ten hours.
- Ask a friend to taxi you
A veteran can invite you to missions you have not unlocked. Two evenings of that teaches more than the tutorial.
- Do not buy anything for a month
Almost everything sold for premium currency drops in play or can be traded for. Learn the prices first.
In play
Screenshots and artwork © Digital Extremes, shown for review.
Verdict
Ready, but only if one of you already knows the way. With a guide it is the most generous free game on the list; without one it is a maze.
Best for: A group with one Warframe veteran and three people willing to be led.
Ready to try it?
The official site has the current price, platforms and download links. We do not sell games or take a cut.
Go to warframe.com (opens warframe.com in a new tab)