After a month of solid strategy and puzzler titles offered for free, the Epic Games Store has a lot to live up to in August. The store's giveaways during 2021 have included Control, Alien Isolation, and many other games. but there is more than quality. Epic's quantity of free games in 2021 is also really impressive so far, with the store bringing out multiple titles per week on a regular basis.
This strategy may well continue into August, as two games will release in the first week of the month. This likely speaks to a similar generosity throughout August, and there are plenty of different titles to choose from. Another interesting element of July's free Epic Games Store games was the theme. Most of the titles focused on strategy and puzzle solving. First-person squad shooter Verdun bucked this trend, but the use of squad tactics in the game did still involve some strategy elements.
Generally speaking, there were strong similarities between July 2021's free Epic Store games. The two titles free in the first week of August only really seem to share one similar component: they both focus prominently on vehicles. It would be interesting to see the Epic Games Store double down on this similarity and have its free titles for August 2021 be games with unique vehicular focuses.
Confirmed Epic Games Store Free Games for August 2021
The first confirmed games free on the Epic Store for August are a strange duo. Mothergunship's chaotic, gloomy shoot-em-up elements are at distinct odds to the relaxing ambience of Train Sim World 2. The first game is a bullet-hell FPS taking place in the winding underbelly of the titular gunship, with fast-paced combat and a complex gun-crafting system. In contrast, Train Sim World 2 is a train driving simulator that boasts realism, with unique challenges depending on the location chosen.
Train Sim World 2 is more interested in the smooth running of British commuting, whereas Mothergunship has players create a sizeable blockage with one of the largest weapons arsenals in gaming. If the Epic Store explores a theme in August like it has in previous months, there are plenty of games focused on fast-flying vehicle chases and calm, controlled transport management sims alike in the Epic Games catalogue.
Voidtrain
Eldritch abominations, interdimensional teleportation, customizable train carriages, and antiquated arsenals of old-world weaponry all await players in the Early Access title Voidtrain. The title has gamers take on the roles of interdimensional express train mechanics on a journey of discovery in a mysterious new world. Like Mothergunship, this game has a full crafting system. Unlike Mothergunship, however, most of the crafting is not based on guns, but on the train itself. In a sense, it marries the train management of Train Sim World 2 with Mothergunship's high-octane science fiction FPS action in a bizarrely compelling way.
Black Skylands
Another Early Access title, Black Skylands recently released from indie developers Hungry Couch Games. August will mark the game's second month of release. As such, it would make an exciting contender as an Epic Games Store free title. It would give the game a huge boost in playerbase at a crucial stage of its development, and likely encourage further players to buy the game at a later date.
Black Skylands has a pixel-art aesthetic that complements the adventurous gameplay perfectly. Like many more games on the Epic Store these days, the title was developed by a smaller 15-person team in Russia. This game's huge ambition shows the massive potential indie games can bring to the industry, and is yet another game centering on joys and perils of transportation.
MotoGP 21
The Epic Games Store released NBA 2K21 in June 2021 as one of its free "mystery games." MotoGP is another yearly sports title, with a particular attention paid to player immersion and realistic depictions of the motorcycles. There are over 120 official riders to choose from, 20 different tracks, and even some historic racers that players can select. Opposing rider AI uses machine learning to improve against players across every race, alongside multiplayer challenge functionality.
Cosmic Express
While games like Train Sim World 2 and MotoGP can satisfy that hyper-realistic element of top-down vehicle management, sometimes a more relaxed, carefree version of that experience is needed. That is exactly the type of experience Cosmic Express provides. It has an art style reminiscent of Steven Universe, and its setting of "the world's most awkward space colony" matches that tone wonderfully. However, the cute aesthetics might be somewhat deceiving. Some of the bureaucratic puzzles are devious, and Cosmic Express spans over hundreds of different levels for hours of interplanetary train trickery.
Hitchhiker - A Mystery Game
Unlike the puzzle games free on the Epic Games Store in July, Hitchhiker has players solve the unnerving mystery of their own backstory. While it boasts similar aesthetics to previous free Epic game Horizon Chase Turbo, its content could not be more different. The lost American highways in Hitchhiker are perilous, with environmental puzzles and social dilemmas throughout the title. Solving problems around the protagonist is made all the more difficult by the need to unpick their backstory at every opportunity, with a sense of foreboding and a dark secret floating just beyond the periphery.
Sunless Sea
Finally, Sunless Sea would be a great game to round out August. The independent title is similar to Hitchhiker in its pace, taking on a more relaxed, chilling sense of horror; an impending doom much different to Mothergunship's high-octane action. This pace works in tandem with the implications of the title's gameplay loop, described on its Epic Store page as, "Lose your mind. Eat your crew. Die."
Sunless Sea plots a generational struggle against the deep, eldritch horrors of the ocean across more than 350,000 words of story and dialogue. Ship management features almost as heavily as the game's intriguing quests, with each element of the title winding together perfectly to tell of some stark horrors.