When you’re developing your first game, you probably don’t have a full team on board to help you with your graphics, soundtrack, and other Assets that help form the game. We get it— you’re a jack of all trades, but only a master of some. After all, you’re only human. That’s why we started Mana Marketing to help out with indie marketing. But today, we’re taking a look at places you can get game assets, whether it’s for free or for a price, to help you jumpstart your game.
One important note we want to pass along is that your game’s style and aesthetic is important. With free assets or assets you take from different places, you risk losing a sense of identity in your game. While making a demo or a proof of concept to pitch your game with free premade assets is totally fine, it’s worth investing in an artist or two as you start to receive funding or support to make your game unique.
Perhaps in your experiences browsing asset stores, you’ll find an artist whose style you really appreciate and can see in your future game. Maybe you’ll later realize what theme will best fit your game. Nonetheless, for the most part, these free and Paid premade assets will help you set off on your game development journey.
The list below is sorted between free and paid/free assets (most commercial places have freebies for you to try), and within each category, they’re sorted alphabetically.
Free Game Assets
Blender 3D Model Repository
Free or paid?: Free
Asset categories: 3D Models, Particle Systems/Effects
Licensing: Varies
These 3D models are shared by Blender users, so the site is community ran and submitted. While you might not find cohesively themed art, there are some good individual 3D models for an item or two that you might be missing in your game.
FreeSFX.com
Free or paid?: Free
Asset categories: Audio
Licensing: Attribution License
If you’re looking for sound effects, this is your site. There’s lots of different ones to choose from. Whether you just needed the flick of a lighter, or something more specific like a coin returning from a vending machine, they’ve got it. They do require attribution back to their site in your credits.
Game-icons.net
Free or paid?: Free
Asset categories: Icons
Licensing: Creative Commons Attribution
This site has over 2000+ free icons for your games. There’s a lot of different themes for these icons, though each are quite simple in design. This allows them to work well with one another.
Game Building Tools
Free or paid?: Free
Asset categories: Audio, Textures/Materials and 2D Characters
Licensing: Creative Commons Attribution
Suggested by a Reddit user for us to add to this list, Game Building Tools provides free assets to developers. They also have game templates for you to try out and learn from.
Glitch The Game Assets
Free or paid?: Free
Asset categories: Animation, Scripting, Textures/Materials and 2D Characters
Licensing: Public domain license
Glitch was a browser-based multiplayer online game developed by Tiny Speck, and the team has moved on to create Slack. They have since closed the game and release all 10,000+ art assets onto the public domain for others to create games.
Google Fonts
Free or paid?: Free
Asset categories: Fonts
Licensing: Open Font License
They currently have 808 fonts so hopefully you’ll be able to find one that matches the style of your game. They have a font for pixel lettering, as well as a few game-related ones. The quality of the fonts are high, and it’s reliable, but not as much variety as some other online font databases.
Kenney’s Free Assets
Free or paid?: Primarily free
Asset categories: 3D Models, Audio, Textures/Materials and 2D Characters
Licensing: Public domain license
Kenney originally created 20,000 assets, which are all licensed under the creative commons as public domain, meaning you can basically do whatever you want with these assets. You can however, download all the assets in one go via a donation pack (USD$9) to support the Kenney Land project. More recently, Kenney released a Game Asset 2 bundle. For a one-time purchase, you’ll also receive free monthly updates on the pack that allows you access to new assets. Kenney is also lovingly known as Asset Jesus on Reddit.
Newgrounds
Free or paid?: Free
Asset categories: Audio
Licensing: Varies
While Newgrounds also has art, it’s mostly fanart. Their audio section however has lots of original tunes that you can download, or arrange with its creator for it to be used in your game.
Open Game Art
Free or paid?: Free
Asset categories: 3D Models, Animation, Audio, Textures/Materials and 2D Characters
Licensing: Varies (x)
Each asset comes with a different licensing set by the uploader, though technically all of the art on the site is legal for use in commercial projects (as outlined in their FAQ). You can also sort the assets on the site by popularity so that you can find what’s considered the best on the site. You can also use less popular art to make your game feel more unique.
r/Gameassets
Free or paid?: Free
Asset categories: 3D Models, Animation, Audio, Particle Systems/Effects, Scripting, Textures/Materials and 2D Characters
Licensing: Varies
Reddit’s game assets subreddit has posts tagged with the appropriate type of media that the containing assets belong to. This is not the most active of subreddits, but there’s a nice database of art that you can search through. All assets posted here has to be free.
Paid/Free Assets
Dafont
Free or paid?: Both
Asset categories: Fonts
Licensing: Varies
A huge font collection from different designers. You’re bound to find a font fit for your project. All fonts are free for personal use, but some require that you buy a license if you’re using it in a commercial project. The licensing also varies from font to font, so be sure to check the readme-files or the font’s description.
Itch.io Game Assets
Free or paid?: Both
Asset categories: 3D Models, Animation, Audio, Tools, Particle Systems/Effects, Scripting, Shaders, Textures/Materials and 2D Characters
Licensing: Varies
Known as a hub for a variety of games to be released, they actually also allow for many different files to be shared. Free and paid assets state on the project’s page its licensing, so for some assets, you may need to credit the original artist. If you wanted to give something back to artists who offer their assets for free, you can choose to pay above the suggested price of “free” as a tip.
Game Art 2D
Free or paid?: Both
Asset categories: Textures/Materials and 2D Characters
Licensing: Paid assets allow for one commercial game with one asset license bought. Free assets are under the public domain license. (x)
Created by Zuhria Alfitra, this site provides 2D assets. Many of the asset packs are themed towards a certain game theme, such as a match three puzzle game (think Candy Crush), physics games (think Angry Birds), or a space shooter. If you’ve got an idea or wanted practice for a certain type of game, these assets can help.
Game Art Partners
Free or paid?: Primarily paid
Asset categories: Particle Systems/Effects, Textures/Materials and 2D Characters
Licensing: Paid assets’ licenses vary from asset to asset. Free assets are under a Creative Commons Attribution License.
If you wanted a taste of some free assets, you’ll have to sign up for their newsletter. However, the site itself has bundles and individual assets. Some assets have different prices depending on how many games you’re planning to use the assets in. It’s slightly cheaper for multiple licenses than other sites that require you to purchase the same license twice.
GameDev Market
Free or paid?: Both
Asset categories: 3D Models, Audio, Textures/Materials and 2D Characters
Licensing: One game (personal or commercial) with one asset license bought
A marketplace consisting of different artists for game assets. This site boasts high quality, started due to the fact two game developer brothers were frustrated in the lack of consistency in the quality of assets found online. Submissions get evaluated by developers before it gets released onto the market. Got a specific asset you wanted? You can also make requests on their forums.
Graphic Buffet
Free or paid?: Both
Asset categories: Textures/Materials and 2D Characters
Licensing: Regular license allows you to use an item within a project of your own or on behalf of a client (x)
Lots of 2D assets at relatively affordable prices. Mostly directed towards mobile games. If there’s an asset you want that you don’t see on the site, you can email the “head chef” at Graphic Buffet and request it.
Graphic River
Free or paid?: Paid
Asset categories: 3D Models, Animation, Textures/Materials and 2D Characters
Licensing: Regular and extended license (x)
If you’re distributing your end product for free, you only need to pay for the regular license. If you’ll be selling your end product, you’ll need to purchase a more pricey extended license on the asset’s purchase page. Graphic River is a part of Envato, a digital marketplace known for selling a variety of creative assets for different projects.
Mobile Game Graphics
Free or paid?: Both
Asset categories: Tools, Textures/Materials and 2D Characters
Licensing: Worldwide, royalty-free, non-exclusive, perpetual license. One commercial game with one asset license bought (x)
This site has complete themed bundles directed towards mobile games. The aim of the site was to provide everything a developer needed to complete your game and share your story despite not being an artist. You can also purchase individual backgrounds. There’s not too many different bundles, but you can count on consistency.
Scirra Store
Free or paid?: Paid
Asset categories: Audio, Tools, Particle System/Effects, Textures/Materials and 2D Characters
Licensing: One commercial game with one asset license bought
Scirra is the developer of the Construct game engine. The Scirra store sells 2D assets, but it’s not required that you use them in Construct. Their assets come from a wide variety of art styles, many of them themed for mobile or HTML 5 web games.
Super Game Asset
Free or paid?: Both
Asset categories: Textures/Materials and 2D Characters
Licensing: One commercial game with one asset license bought
This site provides very limited free assets— the free ones are mainly for you to try out before you make a decision to buy from them. Most of the assets match one another well.
Turbosquid
Free or paid?: Primarily Paid
Asset categories: 3D Models
Licensing: Non-exclusive, perpetual, worldwide right and license (x)
Turbosquid is one of the largest library of 3D models. The higher end of these models are very professional and polished, but you may be able to find free assets, albeit of lower quality.
Unity Asset Store
Free or paid?: Both
Asset categories: 3D Models, Animation, Audio, Tools, Particle Systems/Effects, Scripting, Shaders, Textures/Materials and 2D Characters
Licensing: Non-exclusive, worldwide, perpetual license (x)
With its huge community of developers and artists, the Unity Asset Store is the biggest you can find. There’s a lot of variety in art due to the large amount of submissions, giving you plenty of choice. You will need to use Unity to download the assets, but Unity is free. Once you have the assets downloaded, you can then move the files into other engines if you wish.
Unreal Engine Marketplace
Free or paid?: Primarily paid
Asset categories: 3D Models, Animation, Audio, Tools, Particle Systems/Effects, Scripting, Shaders, Textures/Materials and 2D Characters
Licensing: Lifetime right to use the content in developing and shipping an unlimited number of products (x)
The Unreal engine is a popular one, and there is a submission process for assets submitted. They are checked for quality, value, and uniqueness. There are some free demo assets from Epic Games, the creators of the Unreal Engine, for you to download as well.
We hope this article was of value to you and we wish you best of luck with your game dev journey! Got a favorite place for your assets? Let us know in the comments!
If you’re looking to get marketing help, please don’t hesitate to give us a shout at Mana Marketing. We’ll help you take a look at your budget and goals to figure out what’s the best campaign for your game!
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