This week Epic is giving away the space roguelite Void Bastards and the retro platformer Yooka-Laylee. We clarify: What are the free games about?
No week without Epic gifts: Like every Thursday, there are two free titles for your ever-growing game library. This week it’s going to be colourful, because both Void Bastards and Yooka-Laylee are not exactly stingy with bright colours.
Of course, the most important question is: Are these two games something for you at all? Therefore, as usual, we present both titles in more detail to make your decision easier.
Void Bastards
What first catches the eye in Void Bastards is the graphic style. For the mix of roguelite and first-person shooter looks like a comic brought to life. Behind it is a fun, albeit short, chase across a stranded spaceship.
Our journey begins on the prison ship Leerenarche, which is floating around in the mysterious Sargasso Nebula, unable to navigate. The crew has mutated into cruel monsters, which forces the ship’s intelligent AI to thaw out one of the frozen convicts – namely us.
Then it starts in the finest Roguelite manner: We scour the ship’s corridors for new items, defeat enemies, thereby becoming stronger and stronger ourselves and finally even make our way to other stranded ships. In between, we also have to make strategic decisions again and again on an overview map in order to reach our goal.
If we die, we have to start all over again with a new character. And that can even be very funny, because each character has its own strengths and weaknesses that invite experimentation. Incidentally, earned goodies and story progress are retained when we die, which explains the “Roguelite”.
Yooka-Laylee
In the 90s, the legendary developer studio Rare regularly made gamers’ hearts beat faster. Whether it was Donkey Kong 64 or the first two Banjo-Kazooie parts – rarely did 3D platformers play better and come up with hilarious characters to boot.
Yooka-Laylee began a few years ago as a Kickstarter project by former Rare employees and wanted to continue these glorious times. The ambitious project did not succeed, but friends of challenging platform games can still get their hands on it if they get the title for free anyway.
Two animal friends save the world: You slip into the skin of the chameleon Yooka, who is accompanied by the very talkative bat Laylee. Your goal quickly becomes clear at the beginning: you must put a stop to the evil corporation Hivory Towers and its CEO Capital B by collecting the lost pages from a magical book.
Sounds trivial? It is. But that, too, is almost in keeping with the genre tradition. The story is wittily staged and leads you through creative levels. You roam through old temples, have to hop through a snow and ice world and even visit a casino. Numerous enemy types, NPCs and abilities for Yooka and Laylee make for a fun retro mix.
Where and how long are the games available?
The promotion runs from 19 to 26 August 2021 at 17:00. As usual, the games will be permanently part of your Epic account if you grab them during the promotional period.
Do this week’s Epic free games appeal to you? Have you played them yet? Feel free to write us your opinion in the comments
