To celebrate the 10th anniversary of its initial release, Analgesic Productions is giving away Anodyne, a surreal homage to old-school 2D Legend of Zelda, for free. This weekend, you can purchase Anodyne for $0.0 cents at itch.io (opens in a new tab).

Back in 2013, our reviewer Tom Sykes gave Anodyne an 84, writing, "While Anodyne is at times as funny and engaging as The Awakening of Link, the overall tone is one of unease, reminiscent of the indie horror Lone Survivor There is an element of subtle malice, or 'something's a bit wrong here. The meaning is hard to grasp, but the themes and motifs begin to take shape quickly, and the more you get into it, the more personal the game feels.

In addition to the giveaway, Analgesic is running several fan events to celebrate Anodyne's 10th anniversary. As noted in the birthday blog post (opens in a new tab), the studio is "collecting" for publication "in some form of writing in the future" written memories of players' favorite places in Anodyne, as well as fan art is being collected.

You may remember that Anodyne was a game that the developer promoted shortly after its launch by dropping the price to $1, while simultaneously uploading it to The Pirate Bay and hosting a Torrent for people to download for free. The note included with the Torrent reads, "We want to make a living by creating games that give people an unforgettable experience, but we know that not everyone can afford it. That's why you can download a torrent of our game "Anodyne". We also encouraged players to vote for Anodyne on Steam Greenlight, which at the time was a catalyst for indie games to appear on Valve's store.

The stunt worked, earning the creators over $12,000 in promotion and adding 13,000 views to Anodyne's Greenlight page. Just one month later, Anodyne was launched on Steam (opens in new tab) and currently has a Very Positive user rating.

A sequel, Anodyne 2: Return to Dust, was released in 2019. It takes place in a 3D world, but the characters will explore an internal 2D dungeon. A multi-genre meta-commentary on gaming, it was as "Psychonauts" as "The Legend of Zelda."

Analgesic followed this up with the split-world platformer Even the Ocean and the near-future exploration game Sephonie (opens in new tab).

Currently, Analgesic is working on a fifth game, as yet untitled, but it will be 3D, top-down, and set in "a 1950s Irish-inspired setting."

Development has been underway since 2021 and Annalgesic's development journal (open in new tab ) to keep track of progress.