Today's Free Game Giveaway Is So Good It's Crashing The Epic Games Store
There are a few things you can count on every holiday season—a plethora of discounts and deals on all things tech related, continued debate over whether Die Hard is a Christmas movie (spoiler: it most certainly is), and more recently, Epic Games hosting a 15 Days of Christmas giveaway through its digital storefront, coinciding with with its holiday sales event. As it so happens, today's free game is such a big draw that the Epic Games store had trouble keeping up with demand, at least initially.
Today's title that is up for grabs is Death Stranding. It's available to claim from now until tomorrow at 11:00am EST. Once you've claimed the game and completed the checkout process, it's yours to keep in your games catalog forever (or until the Epic Games store ceases to exist, anyway).
Death Stranding released to the PlayStation 4 three years ago, then was ported to PC in July 2020 (see our Death Stranding review). Developed by Kojima Productions, it stars Norman Reedus from The Walking Dead fame as Sam Porter Bridges in an open world. It's a post-apocalyptic setting with an intriguing backstory, and your primary job is to deliver cargo to isolated cities (what remains of them).
The PC version currently holds an 86 critic score on Metacritic, and a 7.8 user score. It's drawn praise for its unique gameplay elements, graphics, and excellent voice acting from a star ensemble. And if you haven't played it yet, the game is now free to claim. At the time of this writing, the Epic Games store is still wigging out, but keep trying—just head to the product page, click Get or Add to Cart, and complete the checkout process.
Here's a rundown of the games that have been given away as part of Epic's holiday promotion so far...
- December 15: Bloons TD 6
- December 16: Horizon Chase Turbo
- December 17: Costume Quest 2
- December 18: Sable
- December 19: Them's Fightin' Herds
- December 20: Wolfenstein: The New Order
- December 21: Lego Builder's Journey
- December 22: Fallout, Fallout 2, and FAllout TActics: Brotherhood of Steel
- December 23: Encased
- December 24: Metro Last Light Redux
- December 25: Death Stranding Director's Cut
- December 26: TBD
- December 27: TBD
- December 28: TBD
- December 29: TBD
There are still four more days of giveaways after today. Your best bet is to send a daily reminder to check the Epic Games store at 11:00am, so you don't end up forgetting and missing out.
Additionally, there are tons of games that are marked down right now as part of Epic's holiday sale. As an added bonus, Epic is automatically adding a 25 percent off coupon to eligible transactions at checkout. It applies to individual games priced at $14.99 or more, as well as multiple games that add up to at least $14.99. And once used, Epic will regenerate the coupon for your next purchase during the sale period, which runs until January 5, 2023 at 11:00am ET. Not a bad deal!
Here are some discounted games you could apply it to...
- God of War: $29.99 (down from $49.99)
- Goat Simulator 3: $23.99 (down from $29.99)
- FIFA 23: $27.99 (down from $69.99)
- Marvel's Spider-Man Remastered: $44.99 (down from $59.99)
- Cyberpunk 2077: $29.99 (down from $59.99)
- Red Dead Redemption 2: $19.79 (down from $59.99)
- Grand Theft Auto V: Premier Edition: $14.99 (down from $29.99)
- Saints Row: $32.99 (down from $59.99)
- Final Fantasy VII Remake Intergrade: $39.89 (down from $69.99)
- Gotham Knights: $29.99 (down from $59.99)
Bear in mind that the 25 percent off coupon is in addition to the already-discounted prices, so now is a great time to bolster your games catalog without paying full price.
From all of us at Hot Hardware, have a Merry Christmas to those of you who celebrate, and happy holidays to all!
Check Out These PC Gaming Hardware Deals
Software is only half of the equation, and after you've built up your gaming catalog, you may want to upgrade your setup. Now's a good time to do that because of all the holiday deals that are in effect.
If you really want to treat yourself, have a look at Gigabyte's M32U, a fantastic 32-inch gaming monitor that's on sale for $579.99 at Amazon right now. That's a splurge for sure, but this nearly matches its lowest price ever (it sold for just $10 cheaper on Black Friday), and is 28 percent below its list price.
We've personally used this monitor and can attest that it's an excellent display. It offers up 90 percent coverage of the DCI-P3 and 123 percent of the sRGB color spaces, so not only is it great for gaming with a 4K resolution, 144Hz refresh rate, 1ms response time, and FreeSync support, it offers superb color accuracy for work chores too.
Do you need a new gaming laptop? If so, then check out MSI's Pulse GL66, which is on sale for $1,259 at Amazon (28 percent off). As configured, this 15.6-inch laptop rocks a 144Hz display, powered by an Intel Core i7-12700H processor and a GeForce RTX 3070 GPU.
It also sports 16GB of DDR4-3200 RAM, a 512GB NVMe solid state drive, RGB-backlit keyboard, and USB 3.2 Gen 1 Type-C connectivity. In short, it's an all-around strong gaming laptop at a great price.
Here are some other PC gaming hardware deals...
- Corsair Dark Core RGB Pro SE Wireless Gaming Mouse: $66.75 (save 33 percent)
- Corsair K70 Pro Mini Wireless RGB Mechanical Gaming Keyboard: $122.50 (save 32 percent)
- Samsung Odyssey G7 37-Inch WQHD Monitor (240Hz, G-Sync/FreeSync): $599.99 (save 25 percent)
- HP Envy Desktop Bundle (Core i9, RTX 3070, 16GB RAM, 1TB SSD): $1,399.99 (save 26 percent)
- Lenovo IdeaPad Gaming 3 Laptop (Ryzen 5 6600H, RTX 3050): $599.99 (save 33 percent)
Update:
Epic had originally listed the Director’s Cut as the free game, but has since updated to the base game. If you’re having trouble claiming your copy, keep trying/refreshing (we’ve updated our links). We were finally able to break through the server issues Epic is having from the heavy load and successfully claim a copy at the time of this update (~1:00pm EST).
Epic had originally listed the Director’s Cut as the free game, but has since updated to the base game. If you’re having trouble claiming your copy, keep trying/refreshing (we’ve updated our links). We were finally able to break through the server issues Epic is having from the heavy load and successfully claim a copy at the time of this update (~1:00pm EST).
