Epic Games Store is giving away Breathedge and Rival Stars Horse Racing for free this week

Every week the Epic Games Store gives away a game or two for free. This week, they’re giving us a banger narrative survival game and a game that wishes it was Secret of the Magic Crystals for free.

• Breathedge
  • Release Date: February 25, 2021
  • Game Type: Survival
  • POV: 1st person
  • Party: Single Player
  • DLC: None.

I swear, I learned the lesson of Mass Effect to not declare a game centered around narrative good until you finish the narrative and are certain of that, but Breathedge left me so close to the edge of my seat I fell off. The premise is that you were on a spaceship and then… something happened. Now, you have to keep yourself alive in the void of space, and hopefully find your way home. Your space suit has limited oxygen, and you also need to go find food and water. Cold is also an issue. Most of the ways you deal with these issues are consumable, so I found myself in the home base/starting area, watching my food supply dwindle as I was too chicken to leave and not sure if I was already doomed because I’d stayed there too long.

For some people, including me, this kind of indecision paralysis is what we call “fun.”

• Rival Horse Stars Racing: Desktop Edition
  • Release Date: June 24, 2020
  • Game Type: Racing, Management Sim
  • POV: 3rd person
  • Party: Single Player
  • DLC: None.

Rival Horse Stars Racing is a slightly odd title, because it has several different forks, including a mobile and VR versions. At its core, it’s a similar horse racing and management sim, including a whole horse breeding minigame, but each fork is apparently developed at different rates, with slightly different features. This is also very clearly a game intended for either kids or horse enthusiasts, so it’s slightly less polished but the various horse-related terms and types are kind of exhaustive. I honestly did not know there were that many different subtypes of broader coat types, but I’m not surprised. And even if you’re not in the know, for a free game, it’s pretty decent.