3D Games

Play 3D games for free online at Starbie

At Starbie, we offer a large collection of free games with 3D graphics. 3D graphics are used to make video games more life-like and to create a more immersive experience for the player. Most of the games available on this page are Unity and WebGL games. All games shown here are browser games. This means that these games can be opened and played directly in any up-to-date internet browser window. In other words, players don’t need to download any files from our website to get started.

Different Kinds of 3D games

As a quick look at the games listed on this page will show, 3D games occur across a broad range of genres. We have popular 3D puzzle games such as Mahjong Dimensions and Helix Jump, as well as 3D simulation games and shooter games. Not only is there a broad variety of genres, there is also a range of different ways to render 3D games. Below, we’ve provided a bit more information about the different types of 3D games players might come across.

Pseudo-3D video games

Pseudo-3D games are, as the name suggests, not really 3D games. These games are sometimes also referred to as 2.5D or ¾ perspective. These games use different techniques to create the illusion of being three dimensional, but the game actually only moves along a two-dimensional plane. Game developers can do this by making the background scroll past more slowly than the characters in the foreground, creating the illusion of depth. This is called parallax scrolling. Game artists can also use isometric projection to create images that look three-dimensional, but are actually flat. A bit like an optical illusion. This creates a nice sense of depth that can make the game graphics very appealing.

Fixed 3D games

Fixed 3D games usually have characters and foreground items that are rendered in 3D. The player can move in all direction and walk around objects to view and/or approach them from different angles. However, the backgrounds are static. These fixed backgrounds may look 3D, creating the illusion of additional spaces, but the player cannot access these spaces of interact with them because they are fake. Even so, this type of 3D rendering creates a much more immersive atmosphere.

First-Person Perspective

These games allow the player to perceive the surroundings from the perspective of the character. Players can walk around objects, approach them from different angles, and interact with them. Flight simulator games and driving simulators often use the first-person perspective to make the player feel like they are really inside of the game. It is also used in the popular genre of FPS games, or First-Person Shooter games. Directly in the front portion of the screen, players will often see the character’s hands or the weapon they are holding, creating the illusion that the player is actually wielding the weapon.

VR games

Virtual Reality games are played using a headset that covers the player’s eyes and ears. Each lens provides a separate image for each eye, and earphones within the headset provide sound input. Sensors track the motion of the player’s head (and some headsets even track the movements of the player’s eyes). This allows the game to mimic the visual input of looking around, providing a very realistic experience. However, if there is even the slightest lag between the visual input and the player’s movements (for instance, due to the quality of the headset), the player might experience a kind of motion sickness called ‘virtual reality sickness’.

AR games

AR stands for Augmented Reality. AR games provide a combination of the real and virtual worlds. For instance, virtual objects are projected across a real-world environment, either enhancing or masking (parts) of the physical world. A well-known example of an AR game is Pokemon GO, in which players can catch Pokemon projected across the real-world environment as viewed through their smart phone screen.