An RPG just released earlier this year is now 100% free on Steam after being previously locked behind a purchase. The RPG in question has an old-school flavor, but is also clearly made on a limited budget. To this end, it looks and sounds like a budget Exiled Kingdoms meets The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past. And like many RPGs of the past, it is very grindy and can be quite difficult at times.
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More specifically, developer François Duchesne has opted to make his 2D RPG, Mystic Depths: The Corrupted King, completely free to download and keep. When the game first launched on Steam back in January, it required a premium purchase. More precisely, it cost $12. It is unclear why the developer has opted to make the game free, but it follows a price drop back in June. So far, the game has drawn minimal interest, or at least this is what the small number of user reviews suggests. To this end, it doesn’t even have enough reviews to render a score. This is to say, it may be going free to generate interest, as it previously wasn’t.
An Old-School RPG
As for the game, it is pitched as an AD adventure RPG that puts an emphasis on exploration, survival, and mystery. And the last point — the emphasis on mystery — is worth highlighting twice because the game, like RPGs of the past, does not hold your hand. In fact, it can be borderline obtuse at times.
In the game, you will explore a world complete with unique regions, all shaped by oppression from the ruling power, the Baldemar Empire. The player’s journey will take them through imperial cities, ancient dungeons, and, as the name somewhat implies, deep and abandoned mines.
Some gameplay features, meanwhile, include a classic RPG character progression system, a day/night cycle that impacts the difficulty of the game, and lots of hidden areas and secrets to discover. As noted earlier, the game is quite grindy, which is why it actually takes about 30 hours to see the game from start to finish.
Unfortunately, those on Steam Deck will have to download the game and test it for themselves, as Steam Deck compatibility is listed by Valve as “Unknown.” It could work well, or it could not work at all. Chances are it will be somewhere in between these two.
What the future of the game is, meanwhile, we do not know. This is the first release from the developer, who made the game by themselves.
If this new free Steam game does not tickle your fancy, there was recently another game that previously was behind a purchase — a 2025 release — that was made free. And this game has a 92% Steam User Review score.
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