Get Tacoma and Next Up Hero for free on the Epic Store this week

It’s Thursday again, just like it is every week, and this week’s free offering from the Epic Games Store consists of Tacoma and Next Up Hero.

If you’re new to these kinds of articles, you’ll find a basic rundown on how the free games work and how to claim below. If you’re a regular, I’m sure you know the drill by now! And hang in there – it’s almost the weekend!

Claiming free games on the Epic Games Store requires you to have 2FA enabled on your Epic Games Account. You can then claim your game(s) through either your browser or through the official Epic Games Launcher. It’s free to sign up for an account and the launcher is also completely free to download. No payment information is required to claim your free games, either.

You’ll need the Epic Launcher to play your free game (and any others acquired through the Epic Games Store) but there’s no rush. Once you’ve claimed your game, it’ll simply wait in your library for you to download whenever you feel like it.

A Richly Layered Story Experience

Six crewmembers lived and worked on space station Tacoma, forming relationships, experiencing love and loss, and facing crisis together. Discover not just what happened to these people, but what makes them who they are, through your role as an interactive investigator. The story is told through a series of fully voiced and animated interactive AR scenes, immersing you in the events on Tacoma.

A Groundbreaking Multi-Path Story System

In each section of the station, you are surrounded by digital representations of crewmembers following their own parallel story threads that diverge, recombine, and split off again. Rewind, fast-forward, and move through these scenes’ chronologies as they swirl around you. Your interactive tools allow you to discover the tightly-knotted narrative from every angle, and in every detail.

A Deeply Interactive Gameworld

Explore Tacoma Station both physically and digitally. Unlock doors and drawers to find meaningful objects, notes, and physical artifacts, while simultaneously exploring extensive records of the crew’s digital communications and personal thoughts. Every facet of the crew’s experience on Tacoma is part of your investigation.

A Vision of the Future

Experience life in the year 2088. Discover a rich fictional universe that depicts humanity’s expansion into low-Earth orbit and beyond. A deeply-imagined speculative vision of the near future from the award-winning story team behind Gone Home and BioShock 2: Minerva’s Den.

A Compact Narrative Experience

Tacoma is estimated to take around 2 to 5 hours to complete. How deep you dig and how much detail you find is up to you. Tacoma is a non-combat, non-puzzle-focused game. The details of the story and gameworld are there for you to discover at your own pace.

You can get Tacoma for free on the Epic Games Store by following the link here.

Fight. Die. Win!

Next Up Hero is a dungeon crawler featuring hand-drawn heroes that hack, slash, bongo-drum, boomerang, and jet their way through Ventures. Choose your Hero and start rolling dungeons, gearing out, and maxing your stats.

You can pick up Next Up Hero for free on the Epic Games Store by following the link here.

Both Tacoma and Next Up Hero will be free until July 30th, 2020, at 4pm BST. They’ll then both regain their usual price tags, but don’t worry! 20XX, Barony, and Superbrothers: Sword & Sworcery EP will be going for free then instead. Check back in next week to see what’s up after that, and happy gaming!