Free Online Games To Play With Your Friends While On Quarantine

You might not be able to meet your mates now, but that doesn't mean friendship and fun stops for these couple of months. There's plenty of fun – and time to burn – with these free browser games available right now.

Missed board games night with your friends? A lifesaver has brought the smash-hit card game to the browser, with the same offensive and NSFW you don't want your parents to see.

Up to 20 players can enter a game room and pick from multiple card decks, from the base game to its expansion packs for hours of fun, minus the shuffling.

While this browser classic needs no introduction, Skribbl.io has only become more popular since many countries went into lockdown. It's Pictionary with a mouse and keyboard. One player draws, while the rest guess type their answers and rack up points. Drawing is terrible if you have to draw on a trackpad. But it makes for even more laughs.

Thanks to Telegram bots, the messaging app hosts entire games for groups. Follow the instructions given by the bots that facilitate the game and you're good to go.

The most famous of these is Werewolf, the detective game where players try to expose the murderous werewolf before another one of the villagers are lynched. Key @werewolfbot into your Telegram group to begin.

You also have @Hangbot, which is like Hangman. The bot comes up with a word and players guess the letters and lose a life for every wrong one.

Cards Against Humanity is also available on Telegram via @chat_against_humanity_bot.

If battling was always your favorite part of Pokemon, meet a friend on this Pokemon battle simulator. This is Pokemon without the grind. Jump straight into a match with a random or custom team and show your friends who's the master. Sure, it's not as refined as what you'll find on even a GameBoy, but it may good enough for many who just want a trip down memory lane.

To put it simply, this is budget FIFA for up to 20 players – and it's a screaming good time. Like soccer, two teams chase a ball around the pitch and fire it into the goal. It's not as easy as it looks – approaching the ball at the correct angles to shoot and dribble while everyone is chasing you is tricky, but well worth getting the hang of for those last-minute winners that will have the whole chat room screaming.

Like Werewolf, playersplayers are split into roles – the town, mafia, killers, arsonists and neutrals. Town members are put up against the rest of the villains out to kill them, but no one knows each other's roles. There's a Steam version of this too, but who wants to pay when the browser mode is available for free?

Fortnite, PUBG and Call of Duty may be free on mobile devices, but Surviv.io still finds its place for people who just want to have a quick shootout without the loading time or distractions. Surviv.io is a battle royale game available on web browsers and mobile, pitting squads of up to four players against over 70 other players. With over 6,000 active users at any time of the day, there's minimal waiting time.

Puzzles are all the craze at the moment, but they don't have to be done alone thanks to Jigsawpuzzles.io. Select from a huge catalogue of puzzle designs, from nature to cities, and work away alone or with a friend. If you're not looking for therapy, get competitive by seeing who can finish a puzzle first.

Much like Undercover, Spyfall issues words to players who have to answer questions about their word. It's a tricky play of words, as players need to be discreet enough that the spy is unable to suss out the answer, but also clear enough that they aren't suspected of being a spy themselves. This is best played with your friends faces in full view on Zoom or Hangouts.

We are cheating here because this isn't a browser game, but it is worth downloading. Minecraft have made the Education Edition of their insanely popular sandbox free for students. It runs on Bedrock, not Java like the full version, so that means you can't play or interact with worlds available on the full version. But the thrill of meeting a friend to start a new vast world together is still a lot of fun to be had.