Explore a surreal underworld in free sci-fi adventure Remnants

Now I know where all the colours went during the Unreal Engine 3 era. They were pinched, and stored in the subterranean facility you find yourself exploring during Remnants. How else to explain the vibrant, possibly even forbidden colour palette of this gorgeous top-down adventure game?

Remnants, made in RPG Maker—wait a minute, don't close the tab—stands apart from its peers thanks to its promise that "every room in the game is drawn from the ground up, pixel by pixel." Ah, so that's why each room looks so good, so cluttered and bespoke. It's because each room is given time and care, crammed with detail and items to examine. They're even given unique names, Jet Set Willy-style.

There is also no combat. Instead, there are items to pick up and find a use for, adventure game-style, as you explore each level of this strange facility. Horror meets science fiction in this stark zone of weird imagery. You see the remnants of a world gone before, as you delve deeper, and deeper underground. (Thanks, Warp Door.)

For more great free experiences, check out our roundup of the best free PC games.

Tom loves exploring in games, whether it’s going the wrong way in a platformer or burgling an apartment in Deus Ex. His favourite game worlds—Stalker, Dark Souls, Thief—have an atmosphere you could wallop with a blackjack. He enjoys horror, adventure, puzzle games and RPGs, and played the Japanese version of Final Fantasy VIII with a translated script he printed off from the internet. Tom has been writing about free games for PC Gamer since 2012. If he were packing for a desert island, he’d take his giant Columbo boxset and a laptop stuffed with PuzzleScript games.