Best Addictive Games on Steam
Games built around quick loops, constant rewards, and one-more-turn momentum.
Browse all Addictive →
1Bloons TD 6 - The Bloons are back and better than ever! Get ready for a massive 3D tower defense game designed to give you hours and hours of the best strategy gaming available.
Dec 17, 2018
In this game, you can…
- watch a necromancer tower raise zombie bloons that march backward and pop the bloons behind them.
- drag a helicopter around mid-wave, lock it in place, or set it to patrol between two points.
- spend three days building money, then drop a single Paragon tower that melts everything it touches.
- hit round 100 and get a free insta-monkey you can save for any future run.
- take a sniper tower and upgrade it into a rapid-fire machine-gun monster that plays nothing like the starter version.
- play co-op where the screen splits into sections and each player controls their own slice of the map.
- fight timed boss events where a single boss bloon becomes the whole match's win-or-lose objective.
- push into extreme late-game until the map is so packed with maxed-out towers and effects you can barely find your cursor.
2Sid Meier's Civilization® V - Create, discover, and download new player-created maps, scenarios, interfaces, and more!
Sep 21, 2010
In this game, you can…
- open your borders to Gandhi, then watch him pillage your land, annex cities, denounce you, and launch nukes anyway.
- send a nuclear fleet across the world, punch through a submarine blockade, fire the warheads, then drop XCOM squads to seize the top superpower's capital before the space race ends.
- absorb a nearby city-state instantly, then trigger a chain-reaction war where your allies help wipe out an empire.
- start in 4000 BC with one settler and build a world empire.
- win wars by pure positioning, using terrain choke points while cities shoot enemies from two tiles away.
- bribe leaders and city-states into alliances until a few denouncements turn into a globe-spanning world war.
- fight late-game resource wars where uranium decides everything, nuclear subs blockade coasts, cruisers break through, and XCOM drops capture capitals.
- race two victories at once, then lose one turn before winning because another nation hits a different win condition first.
- build famous wonders in completely wrong places, like the Great Pyramids in Honolulu or the Great Wall of Portugal.
3Plants vs. Zombies GOTY Edition - Zombies are invading your home, and the only defense is your arsenal of plants! Armed with an alien nursery-worth of zombie-zapping plants like peashooters and cherry bombs, you'll need to think fast and plant faster to stop dozens of types of zombies dead in their tracks.
May 5, 2009
In this game, you can…
- play a mode where you control the zombies, choose your horde, and break through cardboard plants to eat the brains.
- create your own custom zombie and sometimes see it wandering around in the actual attacking hordes.
- beat the final boss, then watch the zombies you fought all game perform a full ending music video together.
- plant sunflowers to generate sun, then spend it to build a defensive lineup before the next wave reaches your house.
- fight on lawns that turn into night fog, pool lanes, and a rooftop, forcing you to rethink where every plant goes.
- drop a cherry bomb to instantly erase a packed lane and flip a losing wave into a win.
- replay the whole campaign with the full plant roster, but have three of your plant picks randomly chosen for you.
- smash open vases to reveal hidden plants and zombies, then rebuild your defense on the fly based on what you found.
4Hotline Miami - Hotline Miami is a high-octane action game overflowing with raw brutality, hard-boiled gunplay and skull crushing close combat.
Oct 23, 2012
In this game, you can…
- slam a door into someone and kill them instantly.
- choose a mask before a level that changes how you play, like silent guns, faster movement, surviving one bullet, or killing with doors.
- pummel someone down, grab their dropped shotgun a split second later, and wipe the rest of the room before it reacts.
- die in one hit, restart instantly, and run the same floor until you've memorized patrol routes, gun reactions, and weapon spawns.
- bait enemies with noise, burst into rooms while they're facing away, and clear an entire floor using what you've learned from repeats.
- chain fast kills into huge combos and score grades, pushing for 20x streaks and top ranks.
- finish a massacre, then walk back to your car in silence after the music cuts out, with the level suddenly feeling empty.
5Papers, Please - Congratulations. The October labor lottery is complete. Your name was pulled. For immediate placement, report to the Ministry of Admission at Grestin Border Checkpoint. An apartment will be provided for you and your family in East Grestin. Expect a Class-8 dwelling.
Aug 8, 2013
In this game, you can…
- let a serial killer enter because the victim's father begs you to, so he can take revenge himself inside the country.
- spot a tiny mismatch, order a scanner, discover contraband taped to someone's back, and have guards arrest them on the spot.
- let the wrong person through and trigger an assassination or terrorist attack that changes what happens at the checkpoint next day.
- stamp passports approved or denied to decide who enters the country.
- approve a husband, then decide whether to deny his wife with an expired passport even if she says she'll be killed.
- watch a guy return day after day with a hilariously fake, hand-drawn passport that keeps getting "updated."
- take a cash bribe to let someone through, use it to upgrade your life, then get reported and have the government confiscate everything.
- escalate from checking one passport to fingerprinting, interrogating, and full body-scanning travelers when their paperwork doesn't match.
6DARK SOULS™: Prepare To Die™ Edition - Dark Souls will be the most deeply challenging game you play this year. Can you live through a million deaths and earn your legacy?
Aug 24, 2012
In this game, you can…
- get invaded by a stranger who drops endgame weapons and piles of humanity at your feet.
- tap a wall that looks solid, watch it vanish, and walk into a whole hidden area behind it.
- look at a distant castle on the horizon, then later stand there because the vista was an actual place.
- fight your way through a brutal area, find a hidden ladder or door, and suddenly loop back to where you started hours ago.
- invade other players, get invaded mid-run, or summon help, so any stretch of the game can suddenly turn into co-op or a duel.
- walk into the wrong path early, get crushed instantly, and realize the world lets you go anywhere out of order if you can survive.
- strip down for speed, equip a ring that lets you cross lava, sprint past forty-plus dinosaur-like monsters, and reach a boss arena on the far side.
7Plague Inc: Evolved - Plague Inc: Evolved is a unique mix of high strategy and terrifyingly realistic simulation. Your pathogen has just infected 'Patient Zero' - now you must bring about the end of human history by evolving a deadly, global Plague whilst adapting against everything humanity can do to defend itself.
Feb 18, 2016
In this game, you can…
- mutate your disease into zombies, vampires, or mind-controlled slaves that play by totally different rules.
- play as a health team fighting the outbreak, choosing quarantines, treatment priorities, and vaccine logistics as deaths keep rising.
- make countries bomb each other as outbreak events escalate, even in multiplayer.
- stay undetected in a country, keep it non-lethal, then flip to a killer strain that wipes everyone out in days.
- start an outbreak that triggers quarantined hospitals, travel warnings, curfews, and mass isolation orders as the situation escalates in real time.
- manipulate infected people with a mind-worm, or trigger a full zombie apocalypse that overruns the world.
- hold back lethality until the whole world is infected, then unleash fatal symptoms so fast the cure can't finish in time.
- play multiplayer where two plagues fight for genetic dominance with evolutions built to counter each other's strategies.
- build custom scenarios and download thousands of community-made outbreaks with unique rules and event chains.
8The Binding of Isaac - Now 20% More Evil with the Free Halloween update!
Sep 28, 2011
In this game, you can…
- take a dead cat that gives you 9 lives, but each life comes back with only one heart.
- trade your heart containers to the Devil for power after a boss, or refuse and try for an Angel offer later.
- pick up a treasure item and have your body and attacks mutate, like homing shots or poisonous explosions.
- escape into a basement after your mom hears God demand a sacrifice, then fight through floors of monsters to face her.
- walk into a room, get locked in, and either clear every enemy or spend a bomb to blast a way out.
- stack item combos that suddenly turn a miserable run into an absurd, screen-filling death machine.
- use bombs to uncover secret rooms and hidden paths tucked into the floor's layout.
- start seeing new characters, floors, bosses, and items unlock after wins, so the game keeps expanding instead of ending.
9Clicker Heroes - Click your way through hordes of monsters, earn gold, and recruit quirky heroes with powerful skills. Progress even while you're idle, and watch the numbers climb into the absurd. It’s a never-ending journey of clicks, crits, and colossal damage.
May 13, 2015
In this game, you can…
- set things up before bed, and the game keeps progressing and earning gold even while you're away or the computer is off.
- cash in an entire run by ascending, lose your progress, and come back with hero souls that make you permanently stronger.
- start hunting special bosses past zone 100 that can drop hero souls, and every tenth boss can gild a random hero for a big bonus.
- hire heroes who keep killing monsters while you stop clicking.
- hit a boss wall with a 30-second timer, then farm the previous zone until you come back strong enough to break through.
- plan whole runs around leveling ancients and outsiders, spending hero souls to specialize in huge clicks, huge idle damage, or long-lasting skills.
- trigger clickstorm to auto-fire 10 clicks per second for 30 seconds, then use that burst to punch through a boss timer.
- send mercenaries on missions to bring back rubies, then revive them all later as a long-term completion goal.
10XCOM: Enemy Unknown - The XCOM: Enemy Unknown - Slingshot Pack is Now Available!
Oct 8, 2012
In this game, you can…
- capture aliens alive, interrogate them, autopsy them, and turn their bodies into new weapons and armor.
- infect civilians into zombies that burst into new aliens, spreading the outbreak across the map.
- blow holes through walls and erase enemy cover with rockets and grenades.
- name and customize soldiers, then watch them survive promotions, injuries, and impossible missions for dozens of battles.
- shoot down a UFO, then storm the crash site and clear out whatever survived.
- run a whole war from a base: scan for threats, launch satellites, choose research, and decide which countries get saved.
- deploy late-game soldiers in MEC suits, psionic powers, and flight armor that let them fight like sci-fi monsters.
- juggle multiple high-stakes operations so you can't always rely on one "A team," forcing you to spread veterans across missions.
