What Free Game Is Coming From Epic Games?

Every week Epic Games, the creators of the Unreal Engine and Fortnite, give out a free game on Thursdays at 10 AM MST. During the last 15 days of the year, they give out a free game every day at 9 AM MST. Today, I'd like to attempt to predict what genre of game you are most likely to get from Epic's free game program. 

How are you going to predict what Epic will give us?

I have been participating in Epic Games free game(s) of the week for a while and in 2021 I created a spreadsheet of every game I got. (Yes, it's super nerdy). Originally, it was to keep track of what I played, what genre(s) it was, if I played it, and if I liked it. With over 150 entries, I will be using this spreadsheet and pivot tables to show you historically the kinds of games Epic has given us. It may not be 100% accurate but it's a start.

Results for genres from Epic:

​Genre

According to the data, we're probably getting a platformer or adventure game from Epic. Many of the games on this list were labeled as other genres and action or adventure. Seriously, can we as developers give better descriptions of our babies besides action, adventure, or both? When it says adventure, I've noticed it's just another word for having a plot. So technically the walking simulators are adventure games. 🤣

How old is the game I'm getting?

Historically, it looks like the free game of the week from Epic is from either 2018 or 2019. The interesting news is you are probably going to get something more recent not retro but what do I know? My idea of retro gaming is the arcade era and as far as I know Epic hasn't given us anything that far back. 😉

Game Engine

I'll be honest, when I was going through the games I've received from Epic I thought most of them would be made with some version of Unreal since Epic made it. Weirdly enough, that's not the case. Most of the games are made with Unity. However, I have a small caveat for "custom" game engines: for some of these entries, I couldn't find what engine they used so I labeled it as a custom engine because a lot of bigger companies often use their own custom-built engines. I tried to reach out to the respective devs on Twitter and I'll be updating as I get replies. (Thank you to every dev who has replied, you are the real homies😊).

Final Thoughts:

I don't work for Epic Games so I don't know precisely how they decide what games they give away for free. If I had to guess, they give away lots of platformers or adventure games because they are genres that anyone can pick up and enjoy. They probably choose slightly older games because licensing may be easier. There are probably more indie games than AAA titles because indie devs might be easier to work with because it's a small team of people. Not sure, maybe they choose games based on their values that aren't posted on their website. I know some of the games I have received I probably would not have played if not for Epic, so thank you. 😊
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