Heroine's Quest Launches On Steam For Free And It's A Real Game

How many real games have you played lately? Games that didn't require a day-one patch? Games that didn't launch with day-one or on-disc DLC? Games that weren't gimped due to release date restrictions or trying to meet a quarterly deadline? Games that were actually fun because they were fun and not because you had to grind through some countless hours because you decided not to buy a level boost? How many? I can name a few but they certainly weren't made by any AAA publishers.

Heroine's Quest: The Herald of Ragnarok is one of those real games. It was made to be fun, made to be played and in a really strange twist... it's free, as noted on Retro Gaming Magazine.

Now this isn't free like “Electronic Arts free”, where you'll need to sell a quarter of your soul and the meat of your wallet to play, or free like Dungeon Keeper or Real Racing 3 “free”, where your wallet gets turned into a financial dumpster-slut for in-app purchases, requiring the intervention of UKIE and the ACCC. No, this game is free as in “freeware”... as in, “no strings attached”... as in, you can play this game and have fun without worrying about some guy behind a desk with glowing eyes, unzipping the pants of his calculator as he readies to ravage your account with transactions after getting a hold of your credit card number.

Heroine's Quest is the real deal from Screen 7 and Crystal Shard games, and while they admit that they could have made the game with a price-tag attached, they felt that it's more fun and more relaxing to release a game that doesn't have a publisher-set deadline or having to worry about the game becoming a commercial success.

I don't know, even that's a little too hipster even for me.

Still, I can't deny the fact that the game looks amazing. It's a true throwback to the classic Sierra Interactive titles of old from brilliant mind of Roberta Williams. The game will instantly remind old-school gamers of the classic Quest for Glory series that helped shape the kind of PC gaming nostalgia you couldn't find anywhere else, unless it was on a system that contained a game with the “Official Nintendo Seal of Quality” on it.

Heroine's Quest takes a lot of those classic gameplay elements and evolves them without forcing any sort of generational evolution upon the genre. The game is an adventure/RPG hybrid that focuses on fun, exploration and more fun. It's a rare treat to get a game that isn't steeped in the sort of modern-day politics that has some gamers reeling and begging for a mainstream crash. Sad times, I know.

If we had more games like this maybe we would have so many situations like this or situations like this... or worse yet, situations like this. You know it's bad when people have to beg you to offer a patch just so they can actually play the game they paid for.

Anyway, Heroine's Quest is available right now on Steam, primed and ready for the Glorious PC Master Race and DLC-free. If you like what Screen 7 and Crystal Shard are doing in the indie space, it probably wouldn't hurt to show your support over on their official website. They definitely deserve it.

Will Usher

Staff Writer at CinemaBlend.