I’ve heard genuinely good things about the Guardians game. Ghostrunner is also quite fun for scratching that high-paced action in bursts, although I will say each level is a bit like a puzzle with semi-limited solutions, but it does feel really good when you complete a run.
Each is definitely of its genre though, if you’re a Civ/Factorio type I can see these not being for you, for example.
Free games are free games, IMO it would be silly to reject them just because Epic bad. I can install them on my Steam Deck through Heroic without even having to use the official launcher.
I claim every free game Epic offers, not because I actually want to play them. I claim all those games because it costs Epic money. And that is my goal.
I remember hearing things like the epic game store launcher rifling through your steam games and contact lists, etc. I just don’t want to install anything like that and running a VM just for that seems silly.
Edit: article summarizing the claim and counterclaims.
With something like the heroic launcher you don’t even need to install the Epic games launcher. Just redeem the game through the website and play them through heroic.
I never stated I’m not acting silly. It’s true I don’t really like Epic nowadays so why not state my opinion this way? It’s a bit of a twist in “vote with your wallet” after all.
The games are not free, someone has to pay for them, at least something. And if it ain’t me…
For me it’s that the app consistently has errors recognizing my custom location (D:/Games/Epic/) and will lose the games in the launcher. Well, no big deal right, just point it to the location again?
Nope, no way to do that. Alright, well, reinstall the game where it already exists and it will discover the files?
Nope, can’t install a game to a folder containing files. Alright, so then you have to move the game install folder then install the game then cut/paste the existing game files to… you get the picture. Most of the time I just end up having to redownload the game.
That aside, the program takes forever to launch and seems to use an obscene amount of resources for providing absolutely nothing to the game experience. Actually using it is tedious since there’s no way to set a homepage that isn’t their store (from last time I checked at least) and I experience a weird flickering issue along with some weird resolution scaling? It made it really hard to read the game details which seems important if you’re trying to find one of the free games to play.
It’s just a whole combination of frustrations that just make me question why I still have it installed. At this point I’m only still claiming games in the off-chance it’s a multiplayer game I already own with cross-server support. I have a second Steam account for games I come across for free that I already own - games like Killing Floor, Payday, all those sorts. You never know when it comes in handy having an extra account for some local LAN play, so I’ve used the free games with the same philosophy.
All that said, you get around this using Heroic with the benefit of padding out a game library.
At first, I was a bit annoyed that every time I launched a game I had to wait for the launcher to start and update (and sometimes login too). No big deal, but annoying.
Then, I had problem with a game update (don’t remember which, maybe TLOF1) and I wanted to downgrade the version and it was impossible to do it within the store. It was easy with a pirated version to choose the patch to apply and not to.
Last week I got Outer wilds for free and installed. It crashed every time I started a new game. Reinstalling was useless. Downloaded a pirated copy to see if it was different and indeed it was: perfectly fine (no idea why, honestly).
If they had stuck with being a cheaper alternativ for Indie Devs and maybe followed it up with even more favorable deals for using their Engine and being on their platform, I wouldn’t have had a problem with them. It would have been a good strategy to compete with Valve.
Like GOG did with retro games. Tapping into something Valve didn’t focus on.
But they didn’t. It all came down to a shitty attempt at Storefront Exclusivity. And that isn’t competition, that is just removing customer choice.
Yeah I sort of get what you are saying. But I see it as less of an issue. The Devs take a pay for timed exclusivity and this helps development. But in the end the exclusivity will go away as devs will in no way keep part of 5heir consumerbase from their product. And I can wait… But I see your point fo sho!
The Devs take a pay for timed exclusivity and this helps development.
This is only in the case of Indie Devs. And again, only if the deal is struck before the game is done. For any studio tied to a publisher, it’s just money up front for the publisher.
Plus, I remember the stories some Devs told of how egs tried to strong-arm them into going exclusive. Didn’t score them any bonus points in my book.
But as I said, everyone has they’re own principles.
We agree in the most part, and I’m happy the dev they tried to strongarm had a spine and called them out. That put a stop to that pretty quick.
Any monopolist behavior is bad imho, but I can see room for limited exclusivity. But not copyright, 100 years after the authors death limited… 6 months maybe 12… that’s it.
Instead they divide the playerbase, the game dies quietly (at worst) or slowly cooks until it’s released on Steam and then it either does the same there or maybe they get the hoped explosion if it wasnt already on EGS.
Edit: Best case would be platforms dealing in feature exclusivity like SteamOS, Steam Deck, forums, mod integrations, groups, friends, achievememts, rewards (u points/steam points) for cosmetics etc. instead of dividing player bases.
Yes. I like free games, and while I won’t pay Epic a cent, I’m not so self-righteous to look a gift horse in the mouth.
They’ll learn I claim every free game, and they’ll learn what I install and play, but whatever they learn from that will be wasted effort, since it will never turn into a sale.
Because those folks were not duped at all.
Better to look behind it as well. I will vote with my wallet, my data and my decision that I don’t support this giveaway behaviour to increase usage data so they can present great data for their investors.
Hell yeah. I’ll never buy an Epic game but I’ll take the free ones all day. And they’ve had some bangers this week. And Guardians of the Galaxy was an amazing game (with a handful of glitches) I was happy to pay $30 for. For free it’s a no-brainer.
Run them all through heroic Launcher so you don’t have to install the shitty Epic launcher spyware.
I just installed it on my Deck. Pretty cool what it can do, even down to adding an entry in your Steam library automatically, all without the need to have EGL installed.
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