GameZone Catalog Free browser games, filed and reviewed

Free to play · nothing to install · UK

A short shelf of browser games, properly filed

We keep a small catalogue rather than a long list. Every entry is a game you can open in a tab for nothing, read in full before you register, and leave whenever you like.

An imagined miniature game world with a railway, farmland and ancient ruins

CatalogueGZC · UK

Filed under
Free-to-play browser games
Entries
4, each checked on the publisher’s own site
Download
None — every entry runs in a tab
Cost to start
Nothing
Last revised

The pick

Catalogue entry No. 001

One entry sits at the front of the catalogue: the one we would open first if we were starting today.

Original railway landscape illustration for the Rail Nation catalogue entry

No.001

Railway strategy

Rail Nation

A railway tycoon game played in the browser: buy engines, plan routes that actually pay, haul goods into a growing city and pool your effort with an association of other players across a scenario that runs for weeks.

Publisher
Travian Games
Account
Free account required
Asks of you
A few short check-ins a day
Play Rail Nation Read the full entry

Official site, new tab · free account · affiliate link

The index

Entries No. 002–004

The rest of the shelf. Every row carries the same details in the same places, so you can read down a column instead of across four different cards.

  1. Wild-west role-playing

    Entry number 2: The West

    A frontier role-playing game in the browser: build a character as a duelist, worker, soldier or adventurer, work through quests for experience and gear, and join a fort for the large set-piece battles.

    Publisher
    InnoGames
    Account
    Free account required
    Asks of you
    Short sessions, most days
  2. Arena role-playing

    Entry number 3: Gladiatus

    A Roman arena role-playing game in the browser: send a gladiator on expeditions and dungeon runs, spend the loot on better equipment, and test the result against other players in the arena.

    Publisher
    Gameforge
    Account
    Free account, or sign in with Google or Facebook
    Asks of you
    Two-minute bursts, several a day
  3. Farm simulation

    Entry number 4: Farmerama

    A farming simulation that runs in a browser tab: plough and sow fields, keep a yard full of animals, sell the harvest to buy better equipment and trade with the other players who make up the market.

    Publisher
    Bigpoint
    Account
    Free account, or sign in with Facebook
    Asks of you
    One unhurried round a day

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Method

How a game gets catalogued

Four steps, the same four for every entry. Nothing here is paid for and no publisher sees a review before you do.

A magnifying glass, blank catalogue cards and a wooden train on a map
  1. Open it, don’t read about it

    A game only gets a number once we have loaded it in a normal browser on a normal connection and made an account the way you would.

  2. Check the facts at the source

    Genre, languages, minimum age, whether anything has to be installed — all of it comes from the publisher’s own pages, and we note the date we looked.

  3. Play far enough to have a view

    Long enough to see what the first hour asks of you, where the free version stops being generous and how often the game wants you back.

  4. File it, date it, revisit it

    The entry gets an accession number, a plain summary and a dated verdict. When the game changes, the entry changes with it.

Read the full checklist

Questions

Before you register

Is it really free to play?

Yes. Every entry is free to start and free to keep playing in your browser. Publishers sell optional extras that mostly buy speed, we say so on each entry, and you can ignore them completely.

Do I need to download anything?

No. Everything here runs in a current version of Chrome, Firefox, Safari or Edge on a desktop machine. Where a game also works on a phone browser, the entry says so.

How do I start?

Open an entry, read the record card, then use “Play now”. You land on the publisher’s own site, where a short registration creates your free account.

Why only four games?

Because we would rather describe four games accurately than list forty we have not opened. The catalogue grows when a game earns a number, not on a schedule.

Are you paid by the game publishers?

Some of our links are affiliate links: if you register through one, the publisher may pay us a commission at no cost to you. It never changes what we write, and it is disclosed on every page.

Something isn’t working — who do I contact?

For anything inside a game — logins, purchases, bugs — contact the publisher’s support, which each entry links to. For anything about this site, use our contact form.

Is this site connected to gambling?

No. GameZone Catalog lists free-to-play video games only. It is not associated with online casinos, betting or gambling of any kind.

Next

Take a look at the whole shelf

Four entries, four different kinds of game. Pick one, make a free account on the publisher’s site and you are playing in a couple of minutes.

Open the full index
A quiet railway viaduct crossing sunlit green farmland

Before you start

Free-to-play games are built to be played often. Set a time budget, treat in-game purchases like any other spending and check the publisher’s age rating before children play. Our guide to healthy play.