The Epic Games Store has been hosting generous promotions for years now, making it an undeniably great resource for PC gamers on a budget. Its leading competitor, Steamwhich is still generally considered the best PC launcher and showcase out there, actually has its own free giveaway program called Free-to-Keep: publisher-organized promotions where certain games are given away for free for a limited time.
For example, indie home renovation games House pinball was given away for free for a period of just a few days in early April 2026. Those who took advantage of this promotion could simply claim the game on Steam for free, and it would appear in their game library just like any other game. It won't expire for any reason, and will get the same updates as the regular, paid version – in short, it's an unconditional deal. Interestingly, the Epic Games Store is one of the few other platforms that does something similar: giving away games without requiring a subscription or other indirect fee. But the two services are distinctly different, and which one you should look at depends on at least two important factors.
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From online multiplayer titles to local masterpieces, Steam has tons of great co-op games that should be played in 2026.
As for the games themselves, the Epic Games Store Steam has dried up
I won't bury the story: Epic Games Store giveaways are faster than Steam's. I practically never use the Epic launcher (more on that later), but even I have found AAA must-have games like Fallout: New Vegas, XCOM 2and LEGO Star Wars: The Skywalker Saga. I've also been able to get a bunch of great indies for free at the storefront, incl Sable, Loop Heroand Sifu.
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I've missed many, many more Epic Games Store giveaways than I've caught. Here are just a few of the most important games offered for free through Epic over the past few years:
- Hogwarts Legacy
- Grand Theft Auto 5
- BioShock
- Death Stranding
- Borderlands 3
- Just Cause 4
- Subnautica
- Batman: Arkham Collection
Not only are these titles more high-profile and critically acclaimed than Steam's Free-to-Keep campaigns tend to offer, they're also surprisingly timely; it's not uncommon to get a modern in-demand game through Epic just a few years after release. For example, Hogwarts Legacythe best-selling game of 2023, was given away for free on the platform less than three years after it was first released on current-gen consoles.
Epic usually gives away one or two free games a week, but this picks up in December, when the platform gives away a new game every day for 15 days.
It's all subjective, but you'd be hard-pressed to find many people who would argue that, pound for pound, Steam's Free-to-Keep games are as consistently good as their Epic Games Store counterparts. The games participating in Free-to-Keep are doing so on behalf of their publishers, not Steam itself, which unfortunately means that most of them are releases that have struggled to gain attention in one way or another. Take Sentience: The Android's Talewhich was made Free-to-Keep on April 20, 2026 and will remain so until April 23, 2026. Despite being released in June 2017, it only has a little over 100 Steam reviews at the time of writing. For what it's worth, most are positive, but this is a very small number for a nearly nine-year-old game, suggesting that Sentience didn't exactly sell like hotcakes at launch.
The Free-to-Keep program has featured a handful of higher profile games, such as Injustice: Gods Among Us and Little nightmaresbut these are few and far between, especially when compared to Epic's plethora of best-selling or critically acclaimed giveaways. All in all, if you're looking to fill up your PC library with free titles, the Epic Games Store is definitely the way to go, but the program has one glaring drawback that's hard to overcome.
You actually have to use the Epic Games Store if you want to play Epic Games
When I first got into PC gaming I didn't think the launcher you used was such a big deal. And by and large I guess they aren't, but over time your choice of default startup program can have a surprisingly big impact on your overall PC experience. Frankly, the Epic Games Store is significantly worse to use than Steam, which is why I said I hardly ever use it: despite my Epic library being filled to the brim with great games, I just can't bring myself to launch the launcher regularly.
To be clear, you cannot play any of your freely claimed games without going through the Epic Games Store.
There are many reasons for this, like how the Epic Games Store is slower and buggier than Steam, and how its interface is painfully cluttered and unintuitive, and how it constantly bombards you with Fortnite ads even if you have never played Fortnite on the computer in question. The platform also doesn't require AI disclosure, a policy that Epic CEO Tim Sweeney recently said “doesn't make sense.” If you're a consumer who wants to avoid games made with AI, then Epic is a much worse choice than Steam, which has a firm AI disclosure policy. Additionally, Epic is still missing many titles, including all of them Call of Duty. If you want to play these, you'll need to download another launcher regardless.
The Epic Games Store's free giveaways are better than Steam's, to the point where you might argue that the platform offers the best deal in gaming. However, the overall inferiority of the Epic Games Store drags this value down more than you might expect. Meanwhile, Steam's Free-to-Keep promotions are like pleasant surprises within the already thriving empire that is Steam, which doesn't really need to attract new consumers the way Epic does.
