Steam gamers urged to check out ‘old school’ free game you definitely missed

A free game recently added to Steam has proven a huge hit with fans who have taken the time to play it, even though it's far from the biggest release of the year.

2025 has seen its share of massive games so far, with the likes of Assassin's Creed Shadows and Kingdom Come 2: Deliverance, so it's easy to forget to turn our attention to the smaller games every now and then.

Fortunately, some of the smaller and more interesting games added to Steam are often completely free to download and play. Unfortunately, they're not always so easy to find.

That's why I wanted to turn your attention to Goosthetic, a wonderful new game developed by students at the DigiPen Institute of Technology. It's a bright, breezy, colourful 3D shooter that's well worth a look.

"Arm yourself with sticky boots, a smart-pistol, and the titular 'Goosthetic' grappling prosthetic to swing, slide, jump, boost, and shoot your way out of a twisted and abandoned scientific facility," reads the game's official description. "Escape captivity and evade slime mutations in this fast-paced action-platformer FPS."

Those who have taken a couple of hours to check it out have a lot of super positive things to say already.

One Steam review enthuses: "This was really fun and had such an old school unique vibe to it that honestly if this was turned into a full release game there is a lot of fun potential here. For puzzles or boss fights even overall really loved it. You know it's good when you are sad it's over."

"Cool movement, cool music, cool art, cool game. Fun to replay and try to beat the times," adds another.

A third writes: "There's love put into this game and you can absolutely tell. All the components work together so well and any rough edges are polished by the sheer amount of joy you'll get playing the game."

Be sure to check this one out for yourself if you're interested in seeing just what the next generation of talent is up to.