Epic Games Store Free Games for 10/15-10/22

If you’re bored of last week’s free offerings, Epic has two new free games available. Both titles are single-player, which can be perfect for if your Wi-Fi goes down or you just need a break from your battle royale of choice. The titles are even on two drastically different ends of the gaming spectrum, so if one doesn’t suit your taste, it’s entirely likely the other will.

Image Credit: Reddit, u/Ironfungus

The first title is Frictional Games’ Amnesia: A Machine for Pigs, first released in September 2013. A survival horror game set in 1899 London, players fill the shoes of Oswald Mandus as he attempts to help “the Engineer” in repairing the “Machine” which has trapped his sons far below his home.

As with most survival horror games, you’re unable to fight back, and instead have to avoid being spotted or runaway from the Manpigs, which will try to stop you as you work your way down to the Machine to free your sons.

Of course, the story isn’t really that simple, but that’s all I’ll say on it for now so as to avoid spoilers. All in all, a very good horror game to pick up and spend a few hours with, especially if this genre is your favorite to play.

The game didn’t do too well critically, mostly due to infrequent encounters with Manpigs, a reliance on sound to create the spooky feeling, and minimal and linear gameplay. Not necessarily the most damning criticisms, especially given that the game was praised for its story and atmosphere, but I guess it depends on your tastes.

Image Credit: Nintendo

The other game is Kingdom: New Lands from developers Thomas van den Berg and Marco Bancale, released in 2015 as Kingdom before being reworked and released under the new title in 2016.

Kingdom: New Lands is a kingdom-building simulation game where players take control of a nameless King or Queen on horseback trying to establish their kingdom. You have no direct impact on things, only being able to ride your horse to the left or right.

Instead, you use the gold coins produced by your citizens or found at monuments in the wild to either side of your kingdom to hire more citizens, build defenses, create tools, and otherwise expand your kingdom’s influence. While this may sound boring, there’s a lot to juggle at any one time, and the game has no tutorial, so you’re figuring it out for yourself as you go.

Each night, monsters attack your kingdom from both sides, and every five or six days a Blood Moon occurs, spawning more enemies from just one side. If they manage to break through your defenses, each monster will take one gold coin, and if you’re broke, they’ll take your crown instead. If they escape with that crown, the game is over, and you have to restart.

Besides falling on two opposite ends of the gameplay spectrum, Amnesia: A Machine for Pigs and Kingdom: New Lands are two drastically different types of games. Amnesia will likely on see one or two completions before you’re bored and have no reason to go back, but Kingdom offers more replay value, especially thanks to its randomly generated resources and layout each time.

Regardless of which game you decide to get (or if you decide to pick up both, since they’re free,) Epic continues to prove that even though they may not have the same size library as Steam, the free titles they offer more than make up the difference.