As longtime users of every PC gaming storefront imaginable, we have opinions about the good, the bad, and the ugly of Epic Games Store. High on our list of "good" is its frequent offers of free and heavily discounted games, and this week's new Mega Sale, going until June 11, is its biggest yet. (It's been met by a giveaway of Grand Theft Auto V, valid until May 21.)
Epic also announced plans this week to roll out a comprehensive, platform-agnostic toolset for game makers, complete with useful developer resources like cross-platform matchmaking tools and achievement systems—which will even work on PC ecosystems like Steam. While we're still waiting to see that whole system bear fruit—particularly in terms of achievements and friend lists, which still lag behind Steam's comparable services—we're hopeful that EGS might finally stand toe-to-toe with Steam in the near future, in terms of average features offered in a given game.
With that in mind, I've taken a moment to pluck out the most interesting discounts in this week's aggressive Mega Sale, along with notes about whether the EGS difference is worth the savings. Each entry includes a guess about if/when each game might eventually land on Steam, which is never guaranteed. EGS exclusivity agreements with game publishers typically expire after a year.
One important note: these prices all assume you're playing nicely with EGS's coupon promotion. All EGS users can claim a coupon with no strings attached, and this knocks $10 off the price of anything $14.99 or more. EGS will also dole out a new $10 coupon during the Mega Sale promotional period whenever a single game costs $14.99 or more pre-tax and pre-coupon. (Meaning, if you use a coupon to buy something, and its promotional pre-tax price is below $14.99, you do not get another $10 coupon to stack on your next purchase. Any "coupon dead-end" scenarios in this list are labeled accordingly.) That price complication is one reason I went to the trouble of compiling this list, because this is EGS's first coupon-based sale to include DLC.
This article has been updated to correct pricing errors about "coupon dead-ends." The promotion is more generous than previously understood, and we apologize for the error.
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Those floating bodies? Yeah, they're everywhere. And sometimes they fight back.
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Telekinesis may not be a real thing, but in Control, it's really fun.
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When possessed enemies are defeated in Control, they explode in pretty satisfying fashion.
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More oil-smear effects when enemies go kaboom. Though don't kid yourself; this game is rated M for a reason, primarily thanks to all the dead, scattered bodies around this Federal Bureau of Control (FBC) facility.
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Jesse has important business to attend to as the newly appointed chief of the FBC.
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Whenever players enter a new section of the FBC, a dramatic, all-caps logo announces it.
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A better look at a similarly eerie, glowing-red hallway full of monsters.
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The FBC's former director somehow talks telepathically to you.
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Optional video sequences explain some of the FBC's studies and experiments.
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Or you can watch them on old CRT TVs.
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Ahti has a lot to say throughout the game. Very rarely does he make sense.
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At least Jess acknowledges how weird he sounds.
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This children's series about the effects of supernatural forces is darkly hilarious.
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C is not for "cookie."
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Some dramatic sequences end with Jesse removing the "Hiss" effects from everyday objects.
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I'm always a fan of video game signage that takes fictional catastrophes really seriously.
Control: $20 (marked down from $60)
Standalone expansion pass: $15 (marked down from $25)
Steam status: Unknown, one-year expires on 8/27/2020
Control is one of our favorite action-adventure games of the past few years, and a weird fake-out by Xbox chief Phil Spencer led a lot of us to believe it'd become an Xbox Game Pass offer earlier this year. That never came to pass, so if you're looking for an affordable path to playing the game, EGS's latest offer is as good as we've yet seen on PC—especially if you're itching to keep the game going after you resolve its primary plot. (Plus, the PC version is particularly handsome, whether you turn on ray tracing or not.)
We won't lie: the first half of the expansion pack, which launched in March, is "more of the same" as opposed to a must-have addition. But the Alan Wake fanboys at Ars were delighted to learn this week that the expansion pack's upcoming second half digs specifically into Remedy's classic series. We don't blame anybody for taking a 40 percent discount and biting on the expansion pack as a whole this week.
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Climbing on rooftops for the 11th time—but I had more fun than ever this time around.Samuel Axon
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One of Odyssey's many varied environments.Samuel Axon
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The scale of this game is ludicrous, but in this case, it works.Samuel Axon
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I might have played a bit of this game.Samuel Axon
Assassin's Creed Odyssey: $9.79 (marked down from $60)
Assassin's Creed Odyssey + expansion pass: $23 (marked down from $100)
Standalone expansion pass: $10 (marked down from $40)
Steam status: Available now
The promise of 2017's AC Origins was paid off with more depth and breadth, and our own Samuel Axon waxed poetically about why it's one of his all-time favorite games in an Ars feature. Quite frankly, you don't need the expansion pass to get a ton of mileage out of this game, but if you start playing Odyssey this week and find yourself hungry for more content before June 11, the piecemeal price is actually lower than the combined bundle.
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