Welcome to the weird side ofSteam, where the walls pulsate, logic is turned on its head, and the journey might take turns and twists in reality itself. Sure, Steam is full of mainstream titles from cozy indie gems to triple-A blockbusters. But if you’re looking for a game that’ll leave you wondering what on earth you just played, then you’ve come to the right place.

Plenty of offbeat Steam games are weird for the sake of it, and not necessarily worth your time. Butthere are countless quirky gems,as well. These are gamesso unsettling and wonderfully strangethat they’ll stick with you long after you’ve finished them—sometimes in the form of nightmares.

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And the best part is that these games won’t cost you a single cent, because the best and weirdest games on Steam are 100% free.

10The Children Of Clay Is Deeply Unsettling

The Creepiest Short Game You’ll Ever Play

The Children of Claymight bethe creepiest 10 minutes you’ll ever spend on Steam. The minimalistic free game created by Balazs Ronyai takes place entirely within the confines of a single dark room, where an unnamed protagonist, an archaeologist, examines a strange artifact found in the Ural mountains.

As the protagonist learns more about the artifact, aLovecraftian Hungarian legendreveals itself, with potentially devastating consequences. It’s odd and atmospheric, and willleave you feeling incredibly unsettled.

9BABBDI Is A Liminal Exploration Paradise

A Brutalist Landscape Unfolds Before You

BABBDIby sibling duo Sirius and Léonard Lemaitre is one of the better-known weird free titles on Steam, with over 6,700 reviews earning it an Overwhelmingly Positive rating. The title is an exploration game where playerswalk through seemingly endless hallwaysand passageways in a liminal gray city called Babbdi.

Explore, collect secret items, and meet the strange inhabitants of Babbdi, who all seem towant to leave the forsaken place.Incredibly smooth movement animations make the game a real treat, whether you’re walking, jumping, hitting things with a baseball bat, or rolling a giant ball down a tunnel. Why? Why not! And that, in a nutshell, is the whole point.

8Off-Peak Is An Interactive Artwork

Discover The Haunting Music Of Archie Pelago

If you playOff-Peak,you absolutely have to do it with headphones, as the music is an integral part of the experience. The free Steam game wascreated by Cosmo D, the cellist for the band Archie Pelago—which also provides the soundtrack.

Off-Peakstrands players at a train station reminiscent of a NYC subway station, with the announcement that all train transportation in the city has been suspended. (As a NYC resident, that’s entirely relatable.) You can still get out, though, if you can onlyfind all the ticket pieces scattered around the huge cathedral-like train station.

There’s so much to explore and uncover inside the station, from talking to your fellow trapped commuters to themuseum-like artworks and exhibitsthat fill the station. The game also features stunning lighting, and you may find yourself just standing outside and watching the beautiful sky change color as time passes in-game (even with the main menu open).

7PockeDate! - Pocket Dating Simulator Is Just A Normal Dating Sim

Just As Normal As Doki Doki Literature Club

PockeDate! - Pocket Dating Simulatorby TERNOX starts out like a fairly normal dating sim at first.Go on various dates with the cute Akari, and make memories with her at places like the mall and a bakery. If you play your cards right, you might end up spending the night at Akari’s… which doesn’t quite go as you might expect it to.

The longer you play, the more the cracks begin to show.Something is very wrong here, and your own thoughts start to break through you realize that you need to do whatever you need to escape. This free title is a great take on the creepy dating sim genre, and it even referencesDoki Doki Literature Club,which started the trend ofdating sim horror games.

6Wretched Depths Is Dredge Meets Silent Hill

A Fishing Game About Terrors In The Deep

Wretched Depthsis like a mix betweenDredgeandSilent Hill,with a bit ofTwin Peaksthrown in. You arrive in the town of Twin Pines to do some fishing. Upgrade your gear to extend your rod’s reach, fill up your cooler with fresh catches, and sell them at the bait shop in town.

Just do your best to ignore thestrange, shadowy figuresthat show up in the mysterious fog by the lakeside, and don’t question why the bait shop seems to be the only sign of life in town. Also, does that fish have hands?

Uncover what hides in the depths of the lake at Twin Pinesin this deeply unsettling free game from Wretched Devs LLC.

5Illusion Carnival Turns Purgatory Into A Festival

You Might Be Immortal, But Your Soul Isn’t

InIllusion Carnival,developed by KiZ, you show up at the gates of the carnival town Confettia as a lost soul. Transformed into a paper boat, you float your way through this new reality until the host appears, attempts to murder you to show you that you can’t die, thenthrows you into the deep end of purgatory.

If you enjoyed the showThe Amazing Digital Circus,then you’ll probably likeIllusion Carnival,too, as the two share a lot of similarities. Both deal with souls trapped in limbo, led by a weird host who knows more than they’re letting on.

The amusement park constantly shifts from an exciting world of shapes into a disturbing place of distorted images and unsettling sights. Led by the unhinged host, this free game wears its heart on its sleeve and gets very weird, very fast.Gorgeous papercraft art and a fantastic soundtrackmakeIllusion Carnivalan unforgettable experience.

4Samorost Is A Psychedelic Journey Through Tiny Nature

Discover The First Game By Amanita Design

Samorostwas Amanita Design’s first game,released in 2003 as a free browser game. Since then, the studio has made other titles, all carrying its signature psychedelic style that’s true to the studio’s name—a reference to a hallucination-inducing mushroom.

Revisit (or discover)Samorostas it was re-released on Steam, with remastered sounds and graphics and a new soundtrack composed by Floex.Explore a tiny worldof trees, moss, mushrooms, and other organic elements as a “space gnome,” solving puzzles to progress from one scene to the next.

Unlike many of the other weird games on Steam,Samorostisn’t creepy or unsettling. Instead,it has a strange beauty,made all the more captivating through the use of mixed media.

3How Fish Is Made Is A Fishy Fever Dream

Flop Through Fleshy Rooms On Your Way Either “Up” Or “Down”

Before Wrong Organ made the viral horror hitMouthwashing, the studio created thestrange free Steam game,How Fish Is Made.In this nightmare of a game, you play as a literalfish flopping past strangely organic wallsand bleak rooms, on a journey to either “up” or “down.” Other fish you meet along the way are convinced they know which way to go, but what it all means and what happens next is up for interpretation.

A free expansion makes this fever dream even weirderby introducing a Katamari-like rolling mechanic. Grow your wad of fish entrails through the dark world, occasionally encountering the bandaged face of Curly fromMouthwashing.So, which way will you go? Up, or down?

2Yume Nikki Is An Endless Landscape Of Dreams

One Of The Most Well-Known Weird And Free Steam Games

Created by developer kikiyama usingRPG Maker,Yume Nikkiisn’t a game in the traditional sense, as there are no objectives to complete or narrative to uncover. Instead, players are unleashed into dream-like worlds, where they’re free towander around and explore the surreal imageryas they see fit.

The experience is entirely unique and extremely unsettling, and everyone who playsYume Nikkiwill get something different from it. The game manages to be both offputting and intriguing at the same time, creating atense and uncomfortable atmospherewithout using jump scares.

The one-of-a-kind experience has led the title to become one of Steam’smost famous free and unmistakable weird offerings.

1ENA: Dream BBQ Is Strange, But Beautiful

ENA: Dream BBQis based on the hit animated YouTube showENA,created by Joel G. You don’t need to be familiar with the show to enjoy the surreal experience offered by the free game, which is just asconfusing and delightfulwhether you’re a series fan or a newcomer.

Make your way through a weird multimedia world as youtry to solve the puzzles of the door “Genies,“and, for some reason, really need to use the bathroom in certain rooms. Every strange character you encounter is beautifully animated and fully voice-acted (in various languages).

ENA: Dream BBQis the first chapter of several planned games, with subsequent chapters coming out as paid releases. If you enjoy the game, the show features more of the same kind of surrealism, so it’s worth hopping over to YouTube while you wait for the next chapters to be released.

There’s more than enough content in this one to act as a standalone game, making it one of the best—and weirdest—free games onSteam.