This week, Epic is offering up the criminally-good Moonlighter alongside the depressing, yet equally excellent This War of Mine for absolutely free. That’s zero dollars, folks. Zilch.
Interested parties need only sign up for a free Epic Games account, install the launcher, sign in, and nab the complimentary game(s), no purchase necessary.
Well worth noting is that free games linked to an Epic account are currently linked to that account forever. Players will not lose access to any free games. Games do not have to be downloaded to qualify, yet simply claimed on an account.
Moonlighter
In our 9/10 review of Moonlighter, we said:
This War of Mine
Moonlighter wants players to have a good time while they tend their shop and fight endless dungeons of foes, and both make for a fantastic adventure.
Developers Digital Sun give you something different from the traditional dungeon-crawling experience with Moonlighter. Not only must you explore the various dungeons in the small commercial village of Rynoka, but you must act as the town’s shopkeeper and sell the many treasures you find from the ruins you’ve explored.
The game introduces wonderfully woven-together mechanics throughout your entire experience to give you a genuinely enjoyable adventure. These enjoyable mechanics will easily drive you to complete all four of the unique dungeons, and to at last open the final and mysterious fifth dungeon.
In our 9/10 review of This War of Mine, we said:
Since the Epic Games Store launched eight months ago, it has given away 23 games. None of the games are slouches, with many being highly-popular, highly-lauded titles. Included in that list are Subnautica, Super Meat Boy, Rime, Enter the Gungeon, Rebel Galaxy, Limbo, Transistor, Slime Rancher, Axiom Verge, and What Remains of Edith Finch.
Presented in a manner not unlike the jaded lens of Papers, Please, This War of Mine hits you with a series of life-and-death decisions driven by your own conscience. Do you protect everyone in your shelter to your utmost or do you sacrifice some of them for the good of others in order to endure?
This is an experience that requires a certain state of mind - that is, mindfulness of a slow start, openness to a bit of self-reliance, and willingness to be immersed in something depressing and thought-provoking all at once.
There is very little to find wrong with this game: combat is not a star feature of this survival game, nor does it feel like it should be, and the lackluster story is more than made up for by the fact that its minimal narrative puts all the power of decision-making into your own, often incompetent, hands.
According to the storefront, Alan Wake and For Honor will be given away for free starting next week. Yet another bonkers giveaway.
While it all hasn’t been roses for the EGS over the past several months, with furor around exclusives dominating early conversation around the store and some theorizing it was spying on gamers for Tencent, a contingent of gamers didn’t let any of that bother them.
In March, Business Insider reported that 85 million had signed up for accounts and were using the store.
Epic has also taken it upon itself to reimburse gamers for crowd-funded projects that become EGS exclusives. The policy was enacted following news that Shenmue 3, a crowd-funded project originally slated to launch on Steam, would be a timed EGS exclusive.
