The overall Epic Games Store strategy for its free game selection can be seemingly described as "throw it against the wall and see what sticks." There's plenty of reasons for this approach, but it does seemingly work out in favor for those who enjoy the Epic Games Store.
Every Thursday at 8am PT/10am CT, Epic releases the new games for the week and, except in rare circumstances, reveals the games for the coming week. As such, while players can grab Obduction and Offworld Trading Company on the Epic Game Store now through July 22, they already know what they can claim for the end of the month: July 22-July 29. These two games are Verdun and Defense Grid: The Awakening, and here's what fans should know about each game.
Verdun on the Epic Games Store
As the name would suggest, Verdun is a military shooter inspired by the World War I Battle of Verdun in 1916 France. In game, it can be described as a squad-based and multiplayer-only FPS with a strong historical emphasis. It includes historically accurate weapons, uniforms, equipment, and battlefields, while also getting into the nitty-gritty of detailed injury models. Squads consist of 4 or so players, with the leader being called an NCO and other roles based on nation/squad-type.
Verdun game modes include Frontlines, Squad Defense, Rifle Deathmatch, and Attrition Warfare. In Frontlines, each side fights over a turn-based maps with capturable trenches (focused on attacks and counter attacks) and the overall goal is to capture the enemy HQ. Meanwhile, Squad Defense is a co-op game mode where players fight off waves of enemies on the same maps as Frontlines. Rifle Deathmatch is the most comparable to a Free-for-All game mode. Finally, Attrition Warfare whittles away each side's supplies, or "tickets" in this case. Every time a player dies, their side loses a ticket, and the goal of the mode is to eliminate all of the opponent's tickets.
Defense Grid: The Awakening on the Epic Games Store
The second one is a bit of an odd duck, as it, Defense Grid: The Awakening, was offered on the Epic Games Store back in December 2020. Either way, those who didn't claim it then can claim it now, and it's mostly what it sound like too: a tower defense game. It story focuses on the alien invasion of a planet with a underpowered defense grid, with players re-activating said grid with limited resources. Its levels typically feature ancient ruins/military bases that the PC, an AI of sorts called Fletcher, uses to defend its home world. Upon release, the game was highly praised as a unique tower defense game with a cool premise.
With ten different tower type, Epic Games Store players will need to defend Power Cores from aliens, and each tower type has its own ideal placement style that players have to learn, implement, and strategize around. At the same time, there are roughly 15 enemy types and each have their own strategies too, so there's a few extra layers of strategy to this game than most tower defense games.
The Epic Games Store offers a handful of free games every week.