Retro-futuristic survival racer Steel Rats is free this weekend

Steel Rats
(Image credit: Steel Rats)

Welcome to the 1940s. America is under siege from giant robots and your four-strong biker gang is poised to fight back. With guns? Of course not! Who needs guns when you have a bike that can drive up walls? Next, simply replace your front wheel with a flaming sawblade and you can carve up Earth's attackers with speed and, more importantly, flair.

Steel Rats is a speedy combat sidescroller that splices racing, combat, and high-pressure platforming puzzles into odd but briefly entertaining action set pieces. You can switch between four riders who use their custom rides to crush and set fire to hordes of Junkbots, ideally while doing a few backflips.

The game is free on Steam right now, and will remain so until Monday April 4. It's a fun download if you're looking for something immediate and accessible, or something that has lots of good explosions.

If chrome rims and leather jackets aren't your thing, you're sure to find something in our big list of the best free PC games.

Tom Senior

Part of the UK team, Tom was with PC Gamer at the very beginning of the website's launch—first as a news writer, and then as online editor until his departure in 2020. His specialties are strategy games, action RPGs, hack ‘n slash games, digital card games… basically anything that he can fit on a hard drive. His final boss form is Deckard Cain.