Four of the best PC games of all time are free right now

Just a few months ago, we announced that EA had withdrawn four of the best PC games of all time from sale on GOG. Because it was. At the time, the particular publisher ignored our questions as to why. Now, a little over six weeks later, Ultima Underworlds 1 & 2, Union, and Union Wars are back and until September 3 they’re free.

It was an odd decision at the time, in June, when EA created the four GOG games, PC gaming’s natural home for old classics. While the Underground worlds Ultima and Union stayed in their own cursed Origin store, 1996’s Union Wars was – and still is – not. This meant that the Bullfrog magnum opus was not available for purchase. all over.

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This is clearly indicative of a lingering problem with maintaining publisher libraries, where access to classic games is at the mercy of the mercurial whim of giant mega-bodies, who are far more interested in moving copies of their latest. than to ensure the survival of those who best bring a net of profit. So it’s certainly good news that EA appeared to do an about-face and send the games back to at least one digital store.

It’s even better that they’re currently free (which, of course, any game over 25 years old should be free anyway, by any reasonable measure of a functioning society). If you haven’t yet, it’s definitely worth playing any of the four games, albeit with a warning that they’re all, of course, extremely dated.

Ultima Underworld II: Maze of Worlds is a particularly important game for me, being the very first game I played on a PC, back in 1993. What a way to enter a new format, with a game created by Looking Glass, those who were going to create two Thieves, of them System shocks and Deus Ex (Surely the best record of all developers?). It’s certainly shocking upon return to realize that these games don’t offer a free mouse look, which certainly takes some getting used to. But do it and you’ll see how Warren Spector, Paul Neurath, Doug Church et al took the “blobber” dungeon crawl format and made it into a much more complex and involved RPG, while leaving it all out. the worst elements of Richard Garriot last franchise.

the years 1993 Union is probably even more significant and important for the development of the modern game. Created by Bullfrog in its heyday – the studio inventing genres with almost every release – it was an isometric strategy game, with real-time tactical combat, set in a dystopian and satirical future. It was dark, clever, and set the tone for decades of gaming to come. Something taken even further with Union Wars in 1996, a real sequel that kept the basic elements, but which takes place 95 years later.

It would be sheer folly not to grab all four games for free while you can. They’re so old you’ll make them work on even the crappyest laptops, and because they’re on GOG (for all their other issues) they’re DRM-free, so you can put them anywhere you want. And it’s unclear when EA might take them back for no reason.