ARK and Against the Storm are free on Steam until July 13

Three games, zero cost, and a clock that runs out on Monday. Steam's latest Free Weekend went live on July 9 and it shuts down on July 13, which gives you roughly one weekend to work out whether any of these deserve a permanent slot in your library. Your save files stick around if you pick the game up later, so nothing you do this weekend goes to waste.

The lineup is an odd little trio. A dinosaur survival sandbox, a roguelite city builder, and a virtual room where you go to do your homework. No, really.

ARK: Survival Ascended

Studio Wildcard's Unreal Engine 5 rebuild of ARK: Survival Evolved is the headline act. Tame dinosaurs, raise a base, get flattened by a raptor about four minutes in, respawn, repeat. It looks gorgeous and it still runs like it is hauling a T-Rex up a hill, which is exactly why a trial weekend suits it so well. User reviews on Steam sit near 60% positive, and most of the grumbling is about performance rather than the game hiding underneath. Install it, see what your PC makes of it, then decide.

Against the Storm

This is the one we would actually block out a Saturday for. Eremite Games, a Polish studio, built a city builder that knows when to stop. Every settlement is a run. The rain eventually swallows it, you bank your upgrades and you start again somewhere else, a bit smarter than before. No thousand-hour save file quietly judging you. Just very tight decisions about beavers, lizards and harpies who all want completely different things from you.

It sits around 95% positive on Steam and it has held that score for years. If you have ever bounced off city builders because they never end, this is the one that fixes the problem.

Gogh

Then there is Gogh from ambr, which barely qualifies as a game. It is a cozy multiplayer sandbox where you make an avatar, decorate a room and then... work. Study, focus, get your actual life admin done while other people quietly do the same thing nearby. It holds about 93% positive from people who clearly needed this specific thing to exist. If working alongside strangers in a pastel room sounds oddly appealing, it costs you nothing to find out.

So what do you install?

Free weekends live or die on whether you have got the hours spare, and this one asks for a decent chunk of them. Our pick, if you can only fit one in: Against the Storm. ARK is the bigger spectacle, but it wants your whole month. If none of the three land for you, our Steam game catalogue is right there.

Which one are you loading up first, and did any of them stick? Drop it in the comments.