The Epic Games Store mystery game promotion is well underway now, meaning several gamers have gotten four free games so far. This includes the action-adventure title Shenmue 3, the action roguelike platformer Neon Abyss, the action RPG third-person shooter Remnant: From The Ashes (which has often been referred to as "Dark Souls with Guns"), and the horror adventure game The Vanishing of Ethan Carter.
The formula for these free games is pretty straightforward, not diverging much from the Epic Games Store’s typical approach. Every day (instead of just Thursdays), the free game selection updates at 10 am CT. This makes it easy to remember and download the games when they are made available, and the fifth game of the promotion is available now.
For December 20, the Epic Games Store is giving away Loop Hero. This “endless” RPG is a mixture of roguelike, deck-building, and general RPG mechanics where the player changes a randomly generated world with cards, instead of controlling the character. Not only is this a unique premise, but it actually delivers a rather solid story too, where the character is rebuilding the world following its destruction by Loop Hero’s evil lich.
Each character expedition sees the hero off to fight slimes, and landscape cards the player gets impact the world around them. If players put terrains next to each other, they begin to morph, change, and add new enemies, thus unlocking new equipment for the hero. There’s also a base in Loop Hero, where they can slowly unlock new features like a kitchen or blacksmith. When it comes to boss fights, each time a player defeats one, the story will progress. But if they are defeated by them or any enemies, they lose 70% of their resources, go back to their base, and start over.
Overall, losing 70% means that 30% is kept, and that’s more gratuitous than most roguelike games. Its unique game and story approach is definitely worth trying out for fans of the genre, and given that it’s free on EGS until December 21 at 10 am CT, there’s little reason to not try it out. At that point, a new game will replace Loop Hero, and the cycle of free Epic Games Store mystery games will continue on.
Epic Games Store users typically get a handful of free games every month.