Nioh: Complete Edition is free on the Epic Games Store
Plus post-apocalyptic management sim Sheltered.
This week's free games on the Epic Games Store are the disaster management game Sheltered, and Team Ninja's excellent slice-em-up Nioh: Complete Edition. Both are free for a week, as usual, and are accompanied by a bunch of other smaller discounts on the store.
We didn't review Sheltered when it released, but other reviewers indicate it's very much what we in the business might call a solid 7. The game's about managing a shelter after the apocalypse and keeping everyone alive, so if the concept appeals then it might be worth a punt (or there's always Fallout...).
Nioh: Complete Edition is the PC release of Nioh, a game which marked a new direction for Team Ninja after the Ninja Gaiden series. Adopting a more Soulslike approach to worldbuilding and combat pacing, the game successfully marries a hugely deep and precise combat system to, basically, a massive bunch of colourful monsters that need a good slicing. Lauren reviewed it for us at that time and found some issues with the port, awarding it a still-respectable 78%, though it's worth acknowledging that the developers subsequently fixed many of the issues it had at launch.
Anyway: Can't argue with free. The big question with all of these, of course, is how many do you actually end up playing? The answer to that aside, Nioh should be one of them: if you like a bit of hot swordplay, this delivers and then some.
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Rich is a games journalist with 15 years' experience, beginning his career on Edge magazine before working for a wide range of outlets, including Ars Technica, Eurogamer, GamesRadar+, Gamespot, the Guardian, IGN, the New Statesman, Polygon, and Vice. He was the editor of Kotaku UK, the UK arm of Kotaku, for three years before joining PC Gamer. He is the author of a Brief History of Video Games, a full history of the medium, which the Midwest Book Review described as "[a] must-read for serious minded game historians and curious video game connoisseurs alike."