Free! Antstream Arcade Pack on Epic Games Store

Mar 14, 2022

Each week, check out my latest article for the new hit game or add-on released for free from the Epic Games Store! This week, the deal is a special Antstream—Epic Welcome Pack worth $15 in “gems” (the in-system Antstream currency) These gems allow players to play games, receive special awards, and join tournaments. If you’ve been hankering for a heavy dose of nostalgia, this is the moment to act and get yourself a hearty dose of retro gaming in.

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 on a regular basis, 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).

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Antstream - Epic Welcome Pack

Grab 1090 Gems for free to use in-game! This in-game currency can be spent on playing games, challenges and limited-time tournaments! Gems can also be used to unlock harder challenges and play turn-based PvP against friends and other players!

Retro gaming is an absolute blast. There are few better ways to instantly catapult oneself back in time than with the nostalgia-inducing trip into the land of classic video games. And classic video games is exactly what Antstream specializes in.

Available on Windows, Mac, Android, Linux, Amazon Fire, and Nvidia Shield, Antstream features over one thousand retro games, and has built a unique community of retro gamers who undertake challenges on their favorite games and even compete in massive global tournaments! It’s sort of like being in an old-fashioned arcade, but from the comfort of your living room.

Now, Antstream does offer an ad-supported “free” service that anyone can enjoy, but it’s going to be a lot more fun to just shell out a year’s payment in advance (which works out to $7.99 per month) if you really want to dive into the realm of the classics.

Just remember not to sign up using a Facebook ID, the only global log-in option that Antstream offers—the last thing we want to do is give Facebook greater insight into our lives!

Get your retro game on with Raspberry Pi!

Antstream is cool, and this deal’s a great way to have some fun on the platform without making a big commitment, but it’s not the only way to dive into your retro game obsession. Not by a long shot.

Probably the best way to start retro gaming is to either opt for a pre-configured retro gaming console… OR simply build your own! Our step-by-step guide to building your own RetroPie game station with Raspberry Pi is easy, fun, and certain to be the sort of project that a retro games enthusiast could enjoy.

Or, maybe instead of buying your kid a modern game console, you could get the stuff to make your own RetroPie station with Raspberry Pi and set some time aside each day to help them build it—and then play together on the console you yourselves have made! After all, the most important gift we can give someone we love is our time and presence, and spending time together with friends and family is what made these old retro games so great in the first place.