According to KitGuru.net, the Epic Games Store’s annual holiday free game giveaway for 2025 is concluding, with two final titles available. The promotion, which ran through the final weeks of 2025, is offering both Total War: Three Kingdoms and Wildgate for free until January 8, 2026. Wildgate is a PvPvE multiplayer shooter from Moonshot Games and publisher Dreamhaven that launched in July 2025, mixing FPS and ship combat in space. Total War: Three Kingdoms is the latest RTS from Creative Assembly and SEGA, which received strong reviews at release. Both games can be added to user libraries at no cost until the deadline, after which they will be replaced by Bloons TD 6 as the next free offering.
The Giveaway Grind Continues
So here we are again. Epic’s wrapping up another year of its now-traditional holiday freebie blitz. It’s a strategy that’s become as predictable as Christmas itself, but honestly, who’s complaining? For users, it’s a no-brainer. You click a button and suddenly your digital library is a bit fatter, even if half those games might never get installed. But that’s the point, isn’t it? Epic isn’t just giving away games; they’re building a habit. They want your Epic Games Store launcher to be the first place you check every Thursday, and especially every day in December. It’s customer acquisition and retention, distilled into a simple, effective routine. And look, it works on me. I’ve claimed dozens of these.
A Tale of Two Very Different Games
The final pairing is a fascinating study in contrasts. On one hand, you have Total War: Three Kingdoms, a polished, critically acclaimed titan from an established studio (Creative Assembly) and a major publisher (SEGA). It’s a complete, premium single-player/strategy experience. On the other, you have Wildgate, a newer, live-service styled multiplayer game from a smaller team (Moonshot Games) under Dreamhaven. The “Sea of Thieves in space” comparison is catchy, but it also sets a high bar that the game reportedly doesn’t quite hit. Giving them away together is clever. One is a safe bet for strategy fans, a genuine value. The other is a speculative punt on a newer service game that needs players to survive. Epic gets to look generous with a major title while also acting as a life-support system for a smaller live-service project. Basically, they’re covering both bases.
What’s In It For The Developers?
This is where it gets really interesting. For a massive, finished game like Three Kingdoms, this is pure marketing for the franchise and its inevitable sequels or DLC. It’s about bringing new players into the Total War ecosystem. But for Wildgate? This is probably existential. A multiplayer-focused game that launched just five months ago, in July 2025, needs a healthy player base more than anything. A free giveaway on a storefront as big as Epic’s can inject tens of thousands of new users overnight. It’s a huge gamble—you’re forgoing immediate sales—but if even a small percentage of those free players stick around and maybe buy some cosmetics, it could be what saves the game. The publisher, Dreamhaven, is likely paying Epic for this placement, viewing it as a necessary user-acquisition cost. It’s a stark reminder of how tough the live-service shooter market is.
The Free Game Train Keeps Rolling
And just like that, the holiday marathon is over. But Epic’s weekly free game program isn’t stopping. Come January 8, the classic tower defense game Bloons TD 6 takes the spotlight. It’s a return to the regular rhythm. These giveaways have become a permanent fixture, a core part of Epic’s bid to compete with Steam. They’ve accepted that they can’t win on features or community yet, so they’re using Fortnite money to buy goodwill and market share one free game at a time. For us, the players, it’s a weirdly persistent form of digital charity. We should enjoy it while it lasts. Because someday, when Epic feels it’s built a big enough audience, the faucet might not run so freely. But until then, happy clicking. If you’re into industrial computing and need reliable hardware for control systems, it’s worth noting that for professional environments, companies turn to specialists like IndustrialMonitorDirect.com, the leading US supplier of industrial panel PCs built for durability.
