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Epic’s next free game is a roguelike with genetics

Rogue Legacy will be free on the Epic Games Store starting April 7, and it's a challenging platformer with progression that spans generations

A knight faces a giant eyeball firing huge droplets of blood in Rogue Legacy.

Another week has just about wrapped up, which means it’s time to get a peek at what the next free PC game will be on the Epic Games Store. This week, you can grab a free copy of the first Total War: Warhammer, but once that offer wraps up, you’ll be able to pick up platformer roguelike game Rogue Legacy, starting April 7.

Rogue Legacy casts you as a plucky adventurer set to purge a castle of the evil within, while picking up lots of loot on the way. As a roguelike, the layout changes with every run, but you’ll be able to suss out how the various parts tend to fit together after you’ve made a few attempts. It’s tough going at first though, and you’ll need to buy better gear and find new abilities in order to survive long enough to take on the challenging bosses.

The ‘legacy’ part kicks in whenever you die – which will probably happen pretty frequently. Each time that happens, one of your children will take up your quest, and you’ll be able to pick which one you want to take into the dungeon. They’ll each have inherited some strange trait from their parents, and those traits include things like gigantism, colour-blindness, or irritable bowel syndrome.

There’s a sequel, Rogue Legacy 2, that’s currently in early access on Epic. That game expands some of the meta progression elements first introduced in Rogue Legacy and offers a whole new ever-shifting dungeon to explore.

You can claim your free copy of Rogue Legacy on the Epic Games Store from April 7-14, during which time you’ll also be able to snag a free copy of spooky mystery game The Vanishing of Ethan Carter.