When the Epic Games Store launched in December 2018, it had a tough proposition ahead of it: how do you attract players who already have established their games libraries with another storefront? The answer Epic came up with was to give players a new library. The store has had new free games available to keep roughly every two weeks since launch, and if you’ve been collecting all of them, you now have more than $2,000 worth of games in your Epic library.
The free PC games have continued through this week, when Epic revealed its latest giveaway of Grand Theft Auto V, one of this generation’s first and still most legendary titles. That game normally sells for $29.99 on both Epic and Steam, making it a particularly great one to grab for free.
Epic’s giveaways over the past 18 months have run the gamut from obscure indies to giant triple-As like GTA 5, and they’ve covered just about everything in between. Some two-week periods have offered two games instead of one, and the store had a new free game for each of 12 days of Christmas last year. There was also the time when both the Batman: Arkham and Lego Batman trilogies were available free.
We added up the full list of 108 free games that Epic’s had on offer since launch, using the regular sale price of the base versions of each game – the versions of the software that have been offered as the freebies, basically. Sure, some of these games have been available deeply discounted or free elsewhere, but we’re going with the non-sale price as a rough gauge of how valuable each title is.
All together, from Subnautica to Grand Theft Auto V this week, the total value of the free games the Epic Games Store has given away is $2,140.94 USD. That’s equivalent to £1,768.83, although the total value in pounds is probably a bit different due to regional pricing variations.
By any metric, though, that’s a healthy haul – and it’s a solid library of games that has something for just about everyone.