I was hoping this was true for Kingdom Come that was recently free on Epic but no dice. Haha. I've been keeping up with them and there's no cost to trying them unless you count time and space on your drive.

Good news DOOM fans, the official DOOM 64 port is not locked to either Steam or Bethesda clients, use the appid method (make a steam_appid.txt) with "1148590" in the text. Save, close, and run it. If you want a faster boot up then change the name of the movie folder or remove it entirely (it's just all of the usual startup stuff.)

SWEEET! Thanks for the heads up!

Here's an even bigger story though. Apparently DOOM Eternal launched DRM-free on Bethesda's own client by accident. I imagine by now they rectified that and removed the extra executable that was left behind. If you see an .exe below 100mb (the intended one is almsot 400mb) then... well, you may just have what you need to try it out for yourself. The .exe in question is reported to work with the Steam version once moved over it seems.

Crystal Crisis also appears to utilize the appid trick, the number involved this time is "447700". As a bit of clarification, both DOOM 64 and Crystal Crisis have been tested on a current build of Windows 10.

If anyone didn't catch wind of it, Crystal Crisis is part of the Stay Inside bundle spearheaded by Edmund McMillen on Steam right now. It includes also includes Blade Strangers and several of McMillen's own works such as The Binding of Isaac (both versions w/ all DLC), The Legend of Bum-Bo and a fair bit more. Apparently this is the lowest price many of these titles have ever been, more so collectively.

Hope you're all staying safe and trying to have fun where you can meanwhile!

Got around to testing The Legend of Bum-Bo today and it's completely DRM-free, no tricks involved. Just start the .exe and you should see it go to the usual Unity based start up menu etc. It doesn't call Steam during the process. Tested on Windows 10.

I really have no interest in VR though I really want to play Alyx... torn now on weather i want to invest.

Okay, we're all updated again!

Yeah, I can understand not wanting to make that investment. I only have the headset that I do because a friend worked for a gaming company as a manager, and all of the managers got free Rifts; he didn't use it much, so he passed it on to me. Honestly, though, Alyx has been so phenomenal that my hindsight is telling me that I'd get a headset just for this game, let alone all of the other great ones that I've played (Payday2 in VR is surprisingly good, and better than Alyx in terms of movement and inventory management).

I suggest looking into Windows Mixed Reality headsets. They can only be used on Windows 10, so other OSes are unfortunately out, but they're relatively cheap compared to pretty much any other brand, and they don't require as much to get them set up, to boot. The controller recognition can be a little spotty, since the headset uses internal cameras to track them (as opposed to external sensors), but what I've experienced with them has been positive, especially for the lower price. Also, don't be afraid to buy pre-owned from a reputable source; a used unit is generally about half the price of a new one.

I'll really have to think about it. Not really in a hurry at the moment.

Btw you forgot to add Clash Force.

The other souce base HL games are NOT completely DRM-free. I haven't found any way yet to change language in HL2 without using Steam. Also, instead of Alyx they should have focused on the real HL3. This one is trying to sell VR and Win10 and it seems to work. I won't buy it.

That's because for games where the language is changed via Steam it only downloads the files for the currently selected language.

I notice Doom 3 is not on the list. Not only does it naturally work without Steam, it's also very easy (and highly recommended) to use a source port like dhewm3, which will be completely DRM free.

It is on the list. It's listed as DOOM 3 and Resurrection of Evil.

It won't work out of the box, but will work with a patch/source port, so it's listed on the Patchable Games section.