Orcs Must Die! Unchained

Random drops and subsequent grinding could disappoint someone, but Orcs Must Die! Unchained is able to combine a balanced gameplay with a huge load of mechanics and it's a worthy free-to-play chapter of the Orcs Must Die franchise.

Free-to-play games often carry the stigma of being “pay-to-win” — a design philosophy that says if you want to win, buy in. Orcs Must Die! Unchained isn’t that. It’s a hoopla of co-op action that works whether or not you want to drop some dough. While the new Sabotage mode is a welcome, albeit lesser refined addition to the series, it’s in Battlegrounds that Robot Entertainment flexes its action gameplay muscles and it’s the game type that will keep me coming back for dozens more hours — or at the very least, to nab those daily login bonuses.

OMDU is an enjoyable game, with a nice combination of strategy and action gameplay with enough inherent randomness to keep the maps you've played a number of times before interesting. That being said, you should be aware that progression in the game comes in terms of access new traps, trap upgrades, and trap mods, as well as gear and perks, rather than in making your way through a campaign or a large number of levels. I found it odd and a little frustrating that trap upgrade points are awarded as random drops rather than through using the traps in the game, so it can take a while to upgrade the traps in your favorite loadouts while traps that you don't really use have reached higher upgrade levels. While there is variety in terms of enemy types at different difficulty levels and the number of heroes and traps you can use, the number of maps in the game is naturally limited. Achievement chasers will be in heaven, though, as the game features over 100 achievements to unlock.