There are plenty of games out there. Whether they are online or offline, multiplayer or single player, play with friends or play with strangers, you have plenty of gaming options nowadays. However, of the most popular are becoming the free online games that many have found their casual gaming solace in. But there are some that are played competitively. Forget spending hundreds on new games or renewing your World of Warcraft subscription each month, give these games a go and see if they are more your style. 

League of Legends

Now one of the most popular games in the world, with hundreds of thousands concurrent players, potentially millions, it is quickly becoming one of the most widely recognized games in the world.

In this game you control a single character (called a champion) and it is your goal to defend your base while destroying your opponent’s base. The game is played with 5 players on each team, so it is simple to get a group together and give the game a go. It is a larger version of a tower defence game, with a lot of interesting mechanics. It is a game known as easy to play, difficult to master, so if you want to become the very best, prepare to put some work in.

The game is also played competitively, with over $1,000,000 prize pools being featured at the World Championship event, featuring teams from America, South-East Asia, Europe, Korea and China! This is your chance to get in early on a huge gaming opportunity.

Planetside 2

While not the biggest and most popular game just yet, it is quickly becoming known as one of the biggest MMOFPS (Massive Multiplayer Online First Person Shooter). Made by Sony, it has been picked up by the Major League Gaming circuit, which has started featuring the game at their events.

The game is re-imagining of the popular Playstation game Planetside and features many players competing for territory on the planet Auraxis. It is a game made up of large battled with over 2000 players competing on a single continent in a mixture of land, air and sea vehicles.

While one of the most popular games right now, it won’t run on the lowest range of computers but Planetside 2 is still an extremely popular and fun game. So look up the computer specifications needed and see if your computer can run it, and then have a blast!

DotA 2

The game based off of the same that League of Legends was based off, Defence of the Ancients (the DotAWarcraft 3 Mod), the game is developed by the ever-popular Valve corporation. The same corporation that created popular games such as Team Fortress 2 and the ever popular Steam platform, so you know this is going to be a great game.

The game is based on the same idea as League of Legends, with two teams of 5 trying to defend their towers while trying to destroy the other teams. You will find yourself pitted against, and playing as ovr 100 characters (that are available to play from the very first game). You can play on the server closest to you, with servers in China, Korea, North America, Europe, South-East Asia and Australia, so grab some friends and give it a go.

With such a big publisher, you might not think they would care about running a competitive event; however, Valve seems to have proved you wrong. Their upcoming event, The International 3 (the 3^rd Annual event), will feature a prize pool that is the largest that has been seen in competitive gaming. It will involve some of the best times going head to head in a game watched by half-a-million fans, and that’s just for the preliminaries.

The downside to DotA 2 however is the fact that it has a large learning curve that you can get over with time and practice, but probably not the best choice for a gamer with limited time.

With more games being released following a free-to-play model, there are even more opportunities to pick up one of these games. Maybe you could even find yourself on a big stage competing for the large prize pool. With many of these strategy games being compared with Chess, Poker and to a lesser extent, Black Jack, who says you won’t have fun with these games!

Author Bio:

My name is Jeremy Henderson. I am an avid gamer, who also loves writing. I have for years played in poker tournaments around the world and made a living off it.  I have also ghost written a number of articles and have been published in reputed journals. I mainly like writing about the topics that are a passion of my mine.