Rebirth - which follows on from Frictional’s 2010 original and its Chinese-Room-developed successor A Machine for Pigs - whisks players back to the 1930s for an unsettling adventure across the Algerian desert. This time around, the focus is on protagonist Tasi Trianon as she attempts to navigate the sandy, hostile expanse, piecing together fragments of her past (and occasionally dealing with unspeakable horrors) along the way. Eurogamer contributor Vikki Blake called Rebirth an “impressive horror subversion” and a story that “gripped me right up until the credits rolled” when she reviewed it back in 2020, so it’s an outing that’s well worth your time - and there’s even an Adventure Mode that cuts back on the suffocating darkness, jump scares, and deadly monsters for faint-hearted players that just want to dabble in its puzzling and engaging story. As for Epic’s second free game next week, that arrives in the form of Riverbond, a chaotic “shoot-and-slash” dungeon-crawler that can either be played solo or with up to four players via its drop-in/out couch-based co-op play. Amnesia: Rebirth and Riverbond will be free to download and add to your Epic Games Store libraries for seven days, starting next Thursday, 21st April. That means you’ve still got time to grab Epic’s current freebie selection: XCOM 2 and the acclaimed rogue-like mountain-climbing adventure Insurmountable.
