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Next week’s free game from Epic is about surviving the apocalypse

In Sheltered, you have to manage a family that has survived nuclear armageddon

The captain has turned off the fasten seat belt sign, and you are now free to move about your Thursday and pick up the latest free PC game from the Epic Games Store. This week, it’s a bug-based pinball metroidvania called Yoku’s Island Express, which looks lively and bright and cheerful. If you dislike all of those things, don’t worry: next week’s free game is something decidedly more dour, the apocalypse survival management game Sheltered.

In Sheltered, it’s your job to manage a family that has survived armageddon in a subterranean bunker. Much like Sims, each of your family members has needs and wants, such as food, security, and a usable toilet. Keeping them alive and, if not happy, reasonably content is a challenge and things are more or less bound to go wrong.

As Jordan points out in our Sheltered review, this sometimes involves resorting to extreme measures, such as – there’s no way to put this mildly – eating the family cat. Yes, Sheltered does bear some similarities to Fallout Shelter, but make no mistake: this is a significantly grimmer affair.

You’ll eventually have to head topside to scavenge for supplies and potentially recruit new survivors to help out in your expanding bunker complex – and as you’ll no doubt learn, the world has changed for the worse.

There are plenty more free PC games available if you’re looking for something that can fill your time without breaking the bank.