Payday 2 comes to SteamOS, goes free to play until end of March

Payday 2 is now available for SteamOS, which will come as good news for those of you packing a Steam Machine, or who intend to pick one up in the relatively near future. To celebrate the happy day, Overkill has put the game on sale for 75 percent off its regular price, dropping it to $5/£4; even better, it's free to play for everyone until March 31.

It's difficult to tell from the state of the comments posted in response to the announcement on Steam, but the general tone suggests that Payday players have not entirely forgiven Overkill for adding microtransactions to the game last autumn. That happened despite a promise that it wouldn't, although Game Director David Goldfarb defended the move in a follow-up AMA when he pointed out that the commitment was made very early in the game's development. Even so, the reaction was intensely vitriolic and remarkably sustained, as demonstrated by the less-than-unanimously-happy response to the release of the Goat Simulator game mode in January.

Andy has been gaming on PCs from the very beginning, starting as a youngster with text adventures and primitive action games on a cassette-based TRS80. From there he graduated to the glory days of Sierra Online adventures and Microprose sims, ran a local BBS, learned how to build PCs, and developed a longstanding love of RPGs, immersive sims, and shooters. He began writing videogame news in 2007 for The Escapist and somehow managed to avoid getting fired until 2014, when he joined the storied ranks of PC Gamer. He covers all aspects of the industry, from new game announcements and patch notes to legal disputes, Twitch beefs, esports, and Henry Cavill. Lots of Henry Cavill.