Free Games! Prison Architect & Godfall: Challenger Edition on Epic Games Store
Each week, take a look at my latest article for the new hit game or add-on released for free from the Epic Games Store! This week, the free game is Prison Architect, a simulation game where you get to operate and construct a for-profit prison, just like you’ve always wanted to. Fans of any sim game will get a kick out of this, and fans of Rimworld or Dwarf Fortress will feel right at home.
We also get Godfall: Challenger Edition, a new version of the hit action-looter that streamlines play to just the most exciting action-challenge content of the game. Read on for more details.
What is the Epic Games Store?
The Epic Games Store has been around for a while, the lesser-known alternative to Steam, the nearly ubiquitous platform for game purchases since it launched in 2003. But, where Steam originally existed and launched to promote Valve games, Epic Games Store launched in 2018 and quickly rose to success on the Fortnite franchise. At the time of Epic’s launch, Steam took a dramatic 30% cut from the sales of video games through their platform! This hurt both game designers and users, just wasn’t very nice. But the folks behind Epic realized something excellent: they could take a much lower cut and still have a profitable business. This led them to fast domination of the indie market, as small publishers flocked to the far better terms offered by Epic.
Mega Discounts
Epic Games Store offers some seriously incredible discounts regularly, in addition to all the normal discounts one would expect on Black Friday, Cyber Monday, and the usual holidays. But the most exciting is their weekly free game or add-on, which simply harpoons all competitors.
When I first heard about this free game, I thought that can’t be real. They must only offer tiny indie games. Not at all, dear reader. Not. At. All. Epic frequently lists unbelievable A-lister games on their weekly deal, as well as sometimes offer two free games instead of one. In addition, just because a studio is smaller doesn’t mean the games it makes aren’t impressive. I’ve picked up some of my favorite new games, for free, from this platform, and most of them have been made by smaller studios (or as side-projects for teams from big studios).