The Epic Games Store has run generous promotions for years, making it an undeniably great resource for PC gamers on a budget. Its leading competitor, Steamwhich is still widely regarded as the best launcher and showcase for PC, actually has its own free program called Free-to-Keep: promotions organized by the publisher where certain games are given away for free for a limited time.
For example, an indie home renovation game House Flipper was given away for free for a period of just a few days at the beginning of April 2026. Those who took advantage of this promotion could simply pick up the game for free on Steam and it would appear in their game library just like any other title. It won't expire for any reason and will receive all the same updates as the regular, paid version – in short, it's a no-obligation deal. Interestingly, the Epic Games Store is one of the few other platforms that does something similar: it gives away games without the need for a subscription or other indirect fee. However, the two services differ significantly and which one you should follow depends on at least two main factors.
The best co-op games on Steam to play right now
From online multiplayer titles to local masterpieces, Steam has plenty of fantastic co-op games to play in 2026.
As for the games themselves, the Epic Games Store has wiped out Steam
I won't bury the ice: Epic Games Store gifts are miles better than Steam. I practically never use the Epic launcher (more on that later), but even I found AAA must-play like Fallout: New Vegas, XCOM 2and LEGO Star Wars: The Skywalker Saga. I was also able to get a lot of fantastic independent films for free at the window, incl Sable, Loop Heroand Sifu.
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However, I missed many, many more Epic Games Store gifts than I caught. Here are just some of the most notable games offered for free through Epic over the past few years:
- Hogwarts heritage
- Grand Theft Auto 5
- BioShock
- Death Stranding
- Borderlands 3
- Just Cause 4
- Subnautics
- Batman: Arkham Collection
Not only are these titles more well-known and critically acclaimed than what Steam's Free-to-Keep promotions usually offer, but they're also surprisingly current; it's not uncommon to get a modern, in-demand game through Epic just a few years after launch. For example, Hogwarts heritagethe best-selling game of 2023, was given away for free on the platform less than three years after its initial release on current-gen consoles.
Epic usually gives away one or two free games per week, but it ramps up during 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 good as their Epic Games Store counterparts. Games that participate in Free-to-Keep do so at the behest of their publishers, not Steam itself, which unfortunately means that most of them are releases that struggled to gain attention in one way or another. Take it Sentience: The Android Storywhich was made Free-to-Keep on April 20, 2026 and will remain so until April 23, 2026. Despite being released in June 2017, it has just over 100 reviews on Steam at the time of writing. For what it's worth, most of them are positive, but it's a very small number for a nearly nine-year-old game, which suggests that Sensitivity did not sell like hot cakes when it was launched.
The Free-to-Keep program included several higher profile games such as Injustice: Gods Among Us and Little nightmaresbut those are few and far between, especially compared to a lot of Epic's best-selling or critically acclaimed gifts. All in all, if you're looking to fill your PC library with free titles, then the Epic Games Store is definitely the way to go, but the program has one glaring drawback that's hard to overcome.
If you want to play epic games, you really need to use the Epic Games store
When I first started gaming on PC I didn't think the launcher you used was that big of a deal. And in the grand scheme of things I suppose they aren't, but over time your choice of common launcher can have a surprisingly large 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: even though my Epic library is filled to the brim with great games, I just can't bring myself to launch the launcher regularly.
To be clear, you can't play any of your free-claimed games without going through the Epic Games Store.
There are many reasons for this, like how the Epic Games Store is slower and more buggy than Steam and how its UI is painfully confusing and unintuitive and constantly bombards you Fortnite ads even if you've 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 “makes no sense.” If you're a consumer who wants to avoid AI-made games, then Epic is a much worse choice than Steam, which has a firm policy on publishing AI. Epic is also still missing many titles, including all of them Call of Duty. If you want to play them, you'll have to download a different launcher regardless.
The freebies from the Epic Games Store are better than those from Steam, to the point that you might be able to make a case that the platform offers the best in terms of gaming. However, the overall inferiority of the Epic Games Store detracts from this value more than you might expect. Meanwhile, Steam's Free-to-Keep promotions are a welcome surprise in the already thriving empire that is Steam, which doesn't really need to attract new consumers the way Epic does.
