Best Free Sandbox Games for PC and Browser in 2024!
Crossout
Trick out your ride and take to the post-apocalyptic roads for battle in Crossout, the free-to-play vehicular combat game from Gaijin Entertainment! Featuring a vehicle design system with endless customization and fast-paced, armor-crunching combat, Crossout offers high-octane excitement in brief and explosive matches.
Palia
Get your cozy MMO on as you work to build your house, collect bugs, fish, and help out friends.
Genshin Impact
Explore a bright and fantastical anime-styled world in miHoYo's free-to-play online RPG Genshin Impact. Assemble your crew of adventurers and shift between them on the fly, as you journey across the world of Teyvat and fight monsters, solve puzzles, and help the townsfolk.
Fortnite
Play Fortnite in a totally new way, in Fortnite: Battle Royale, the free-to-play spinoff of Epic Games' builder/shooter. Like other classic BR games, you'll be dropped into the world and forced to scavenge and survive.
Albion Online
Albion Online is a 3D sandbox MMORPG with player freedom being at the center of the game. Players will be able to claim land, build a house, gather resources, craft items which they can use or sell, and engage in Guild vs Guild or open world PVP.
Dungeons and Dragons Online
Dungeons & Dragons Online: Eberron Unlimited (DDO) is a free to play 3D Fantasy MMORPG based on the classic Dungeons and Dragons (D&D) tabletop role playing game. The game was originally released as a subscription based game but is now free-to-play with an item shop.
Brighter Shores
If you are a Runescape fan, you may want to check out the latest MMORPG project from its creator.
Neverwinter
Neverwinter is an action MMORPG based on the acclaimed Dungeons and Dragons universe. In Neverwinter you take on the role as a mighty hero who must set out to protect the lands of Neverwinter from those who conspire to see it destroyed.
Fractured Online
It's been a long road to get here, but Fractured Online is now free-to-play.
Ethyrial: Echoes of Yore
An "old school MMORPG" that pays tribute to those that came before it.
Lost Light
Go it alone or team up with friends (or enemies you decide to spare) in this cross-platform, survival shooter.
Chimeraland
Chimeraland is a free-to-play sandbox MMO that has so many character customization options that some of you may be in the creator for hours… no joke
Blankos Block Party
Play in a multitude of fanciful worlds in Blankos Block Party, a free and wide open multiplayer game from Mythical. Get your Blanko, give it a special power, and set it off on an adventure in The Junction, a colorful and vibrant world that serves as your hub to many others.
Ylands
Get creative and build the world of your dreams in Ylands, a free game-builder from Bohemia Interactive.
Legends of Aria
Choose your path and create your legacy in Legends of Aria a free-to-play sandbox MMORPG from Citadel Studios. Create your character exactly how you want it, choosing from over 30 skills, and put yourself to the test in a vast open world where danger lurks around every corner.
Totally Accurate Battlegrounds
Dive into hyper-realistic battle royale action in Landfall's Totally Accurate Battlegrounds, now free-to-play. Up to 60 players compete to be the last man wobbling, using weapons like the balloon crossbow, inflatable hammer to achieve their murderous goals.
Wild Terra Online
Make friends, make enemies, and survive the elements in Wild Terra Online, a free-to-play survival MMORPG from Juvty Worlds Ltd. With over 100 buildings to choose from, you can build your settlement up from scratch and defend it from all comers in skill-based combat, or just engage in crafting and the economical aspects of the game.
Pixel Worlds
Create your own world and enjoy endless customization in Pixel Worlds, a 2-D free-to-play MMORPG from Kukouri Mobile Entertainment that's now on Steam! Gather resources through mining and farming, using what you can to build and trading away what you can't to other players, thanks to an economy that's 100% created by the players.
Atom Universe
Live another life in Atom Universe, a free-to-play social virtual world from Atom Republic that has lots of fun activities and places to explore, alone or with friends. You can play in the Minikart Race or the Shooting Gallery, or try your hand at some Motor Stunts.
Trove
Trove is a Voxel-based MMO from Trion Worlds that generates exciting new worlds on a regular basis. It features free-form exploration that makes going through a mountain as rewarding as going over it, and enables community contributions to significantly impact the game through player created creatures and environments.
Salem
Salem is a free-to-play crafting MMORPG developed by Seatribe and Mortal Moments, Inc. Players will experience an enormous open-world colonial setting where creation is the goal and all the necessary materials are for the taking – and permanent death is a real possibility.
Block N Load
Block N Load is a free-to-play multiplayer online FPS game developed by Jagex that looks like a mix of Minecraft and Team Fortress 2. Get ready for the ultimate in multiplayer online gaming; you’ll face off in battles of 5v5, where everything you build, destroy, construct or shoot at has a devastating impact on the entire game.
Gear Up
Gear Up is a free to play multiplayer arcade action game with tanks and robots. Vehicular combat is fun, and Gear Up is no exception to that.
8BitMMO
Listen up all of you 8bit lovers out there! As the name would suggest, 8BitMMO is a free to play retrostyle 2D massively multiplayer game!
Blockade 3D
Blockade 3D is a free to play multiplayer First Person Shooter (FPS) in an editable procedural world similar to Minecraft. In this cubic sandbox you can build and destroy things with 4 teams at the same time and up to 32 players on one map.
Counter-Strike Nexon: Studio
Counter-Strike Nexon: Studio is the free-to-play massively multiplayer online FPS that asks the simple question: What’s better than Counter-Strike? Answer: Counter-Strike with new game modes, map creation and lots of zombies!
ArcheAge
ArcheAge is a fantasy sandbox MMORPG that sends players on a journey across the great continents of Nuia and Harihara. In search of the legacy of the Delphinad, the greatest city to ever exist, they will unfold the secrets of the Lost Continent as well as whatever adventures and treasures that turn up along the way.
WAKFU
Wakfu is a free to play 2D anime-style MMORPG with unique features like a ecosystem, citizenship and much more featuring tactical turn-based combat, vast character customization, and a deep player influenced world. One of the goals of the game is to develop your character, not only by finding its place in the world of Wakfu, but also by improving its characteristics and battle skills.
Cubic Castles
Cubic Castles is a 3D voxel-based adventure MMO from Cosmic Cow. Jump into a destructible world that is yours to mine, terraform, build, and destroy with as you please, all so your realm can grow.
Creativerse
In Creativerse, a free-to-play building game from Playful Corporation, you can explore, mine, craft, and build to your heart's content in a lush and vibrant 3-D world. Many elements will be familiar to players of similar games, but Creativerse streamlines much of the gameplay, making it easy to jump right in and start building the structure of your dreams!
Guns and Robots
Guns and Robots is a third person shooter which combines silly robots and the wild west. In Guns and Robots players can create unique robots from scratch by combining over 150 individual components.
FAQ
Frequently Asked Questions
What is sandbox in a game?
A sandbox game is a game where very few limitations are placed on a player and they are encouraged to roam, build, destroy, or even shape the game's world to their liking. Where an open world game may allow the player to accomplish game objectives any way and in any order they so choose, a sandbox game usually tosses aside objectives in many case. This lack of direction can be off-putting to some, but the creativity it can encourage is limitless.
Enter a virtual world, maybe farm some materials, and build yourself a house. Sure, why not? A "sandbox" game puts players in the driver seat and they determine what the game world becomes as they find their place in that world engaging only in the activities they find interesting.
What are the best free sandbox games in 2023?
Most sandbox games don't have any narrative or main quests lines, but some do have these features as part of daily play or just as a tutorial type system. The below games are all free and are all more sandbox focused but some may have other content included like story or quests. In no order:
1. Trove2. Ylands
3. Fallout Shelter
4. Albion Online
5. Creativerse