Two free PC games are available to claim and keep permanently this week, worth $69.98 between them at their normal prices: BURIED STARS at $39.99 and System Shock 2: 25th Anniversary Remaster at $29.99. Both are free on the Epic Games Store until October 8, 2026, and both stay in your library for good once claimed, whether or not you ever install them.
Every price, date and player number on this page was read from Epic’s and Steam’s own public interfaces on October 7, 2026. Below the giveaways you will find the Epic schedule already confirmed, the free Steam games with the most people actually playing them right now, and the difference between the three things that all get called free PC games.
Free PC Games to Claim This Week
These are free to keep rather than free to try. Claim them before the window closes and they are yours at $0 permanently, exactly like a purchase.
| Game | Normal price | Free until | Store |
|---|---|---|---|
| BURIED STARS | $39.99 | October 8, 2026 | Epic Games Store |
| System Shock 2: 25th Anniversary Remaster | $29.99 | October 8, 2026 | Epic Games Store |
1. BURIED STARS
Free (normally $39.99) · Publisher: LINE Games Corporation · Claim by: October 8, 2026
What it is. A survival mystery visual novel in which a stage collapse traps the contestants of a talent show, and the survivors work out what happened through conversation and a social feed that keeps updating around them.
Who should claim it. Readers rather than shooters. If you liked Danganronpa or Zero Escape, this is the same shape of game, and at $0 it is worth claiming even if the backlog is already long.
Claim it on the Epic Games Store
2. System Shock 2: 25th Anniversary Remaster
Free (normally $29.99) · Publisher: Atari · Claim by: October 8, 2026
What it is. Nightdive Studios’ modernised remaster of the FPS and role-playing hybrid originally built by Looking Glass Studios and Irrational Games, both of which Steam still credits on the release. You wake from cryosleep aboard the FTL ship Von Braun in 2114 with the ship overrun, and the remaster adds cross-play cooperative multiplayer and mod support.
Who should claim it. Anyone interested in where the immersive sim came from, and horror players who can tolerate an older structure underneath the new rendering. It is the more historically significant of this week’s two giveaways.
Claim it on the Epic Games Store
What Is Free Next on the Epic Schedule
Epic confirms its giveaways before they start, so the next ones are already known. These dates came from Epic’s own promotions feed on October 7, 2026, and the total of the two below is $31.98. Epic’s feed also carries ordinary percentage discounts alongside the giveaways, and only the genuine giveaways are listed here, so a game getting 40 percent off next month will not appear.
| Game | Normal price | Free window |
|---|---|---|
| TerraScape | $16.99 | October 8, 2026 to October 15, 2026 |
| Out of Sight | $14.99 | October 8, 2026 to October 15, 2026 |
Free Steam Games People Are Actually Playing
Steam works differently. It rarely gives away paid games permanently, but it carries a very large free-to-play catalogue, and the useful question there is not what is free but what is alive. Most lists of the best free PC games rank on opinion; this one ranks on concurrent players read from Steam’s public API on October 7, 2026, which is the one number a free game cannot fake.
| Game | Type | Playing right now |
|---|---|---|
| Counter-Strike 2 | Tactical shooter | 1,106,215 |
| Dota 2 | MOBA | 774,633 |
| PUBG: BATTLEGROUNDS | Battle royale | 562,873 |
| AION 2 | Free to play | 273,590 |
| Apex Legends™ | Battle royale | 166,376 |
| Delta Force | Tactical shooter | 115,225 |
| Overwatch® | Hero shooter | 66,681 |
| War Thunder | Vehicle combat | 62,665 |
| Aniimo | Action role playing | 61,667 |
| Warframe | Action role playing | 56,527 |
| Limbus Company | Role playing | 55,657 |
| NARAKA: BLADEPOINT | Free to play | 51,482 |
1. Counter-Strike 2
Free to play · 1,106,215 playing at the time of checking · Tactical shooter
The largest free game on Steam by concurrent players, ahead of Dota 2 in second place. The entire competitive mode is free, and the money is in cosmetic items you never have to buy.
Anyone who wants one free game that will still have full servers in five years. This is the safest answer on the page.
2. Dota 2
Free to play · 774,633 playing at the time of checking · MOBA
Unusually for the genre, every hero is free from the start, so nothing about the game is gated behind spending.
Players who want depth over accessibility. The ceiling is extremely high and the first fifty hours are genuinely hard.
3. PUBG: BATTLEGROUNDS
Free to play · 562,873 playing at the time of checking · Battle royale
The game that started the battle royale genre is free to play on Steam today and still sits among the three most played free games on the platform, well ahead of anything released since.
Players who prefer a slower, more tactical battle royale than the games that followed it.
4. AION 2
Free to play · 273,590 playing at the time of checking · Free to play
An MMORPG built around aerial combat, where you ascend as a Daeva and fight a faction war across a world its own description puts at 36 times the size of the original. It runs on Unreal Engine 5 and is PC only.
Players who want a large new world to settle into. It is the newest arrival on this list and climbing fast.
5. Apex Legends™
Free to play · 166,376 playing at the time of checking · Battle royale
A squad-based battle royale built on a roster of legends with distinct abilities, from Respawn. Matches are three-player squads, and the movement is faster and more vertical than most of the genre.
Shooter players who want character abilities layered on top of gunplay rather than a flat loadout.
6. Delta Force
Free to play · 115,225 playing at the time of checking · Tactical shooter
Two games in one package: operator-based extraction raids where you carry gear in and risk losing it, and large-scale combined arms warfare with vehicles.
Players torn between an extraction shooter and a big-team battlefield game, since this gives both without paying.
7. Overwatch®
Free to play · 66,681 playing at the time of checking · Hero shooter
A team-based hero shooter set in an optimistic near future, built around five against five and six against six objective matches rather than elimination.
Players who want a shooter where team composition matters as much as aim. It went free to play after launching as a paid game.
8. War Thunder
Free to play · 62,665 playing at the time of checking · Vehicle combat
A cross-platform military game covering aviation, armoured vehicles and naval craft from the early twentieth century to modern units, with a research tree deep enough to absorb years.
Players who want simulation depth rather than arcade shooting, and who are happy to grind a tech tree.
9. Aniimo
Free to play · 61,667 playing at the time of checking · Action role playing
An open-world creature-collecting role-playing game where you bond with creatures called Aniimo, unlock abilities and explore the continent of Idyll.
Players who want a monster-collecting loop on PC without a console or a purchase.
10. Warframe
Free to play · 56,527 playing at the time of checking · Action role playing
A story-driven online action game where you play a warrior in a powered suit, built on fast movement and a very large library of frames and weapons earned through play.
Players who want depth that unfolds over months. Its reputation is that the first few hours explain almost nothing and the next few hundred explain everything.
11. Limbus Company
Free to play · 55,657 playing at the time of checking · Role playing
A turn-based role-playing game where you lead twelve Sinners into the buried facilities of Lobotomy Corporation, with a heavy narrative and an unusual combat system.
Players who want a story-led game rather than a shooter, and who do not mind reading.
12. NARAKA: BLADEPOINT
Free to play · 51,482 playing at the time of checking · Free to play
A melee-focused battle royale set in the Far East, built on grappling-hook movement and a roster of heroes with distinct skills rather than on firearms.
Battle royale players tired of guns. The close-quarters combat is the whole point and it plays nothing like the others on this list.
Free to Keep, Free to Play and Free Weekend Are Three Different Things
Most disappointment with free PC games comes from mixing these up, and stores do not always make the distinction obvious.
- Free to keep. A normally paid game given away for a limited window. Claim it inside the window and it is permanently in your library, exactly like a purchase. The Epic games above are this.
- Free to play. The game has no price and never did. It funds itself through cosmetics, battle passes or progression, so the download is complete but the economy is the business. Every Steam game in the table above is this.
- Free weekend. Temporary access to a paid game. You play it for a few days and then it locks unless you buy it. Nothing is kept.
- Demos and playtests. A slice of the game, usually time limited or content limited, and sometimes tied to a closed test.
The practical rule is to check whether a store says claim or play. Claim means it is going into your library for good. Play usually means you are starting a download that costs nothing today and may ask for money later.
How to Claim a Free Game and What You Keep
Claiming takes under a minute and you do not have to download anything. The game sits in your library until you want it, which matters when a weekly giveaway is larger than your drive. Claiming and downloading are separate steps, so you can collect free games to download later without spending a byte today.
- Open the Epic Games Store, in the launcher or in a browser, and sign in. You do not need the launcher to claim, only to play.
- Open the game’s page and choose Get, then complete the $0 order.
- The game appears in your library permanently. Install it whenever you like.
A claimed game stays in the account that claimed it, so it is worth using the account you actually intend to keep. Background on how the store works and why it runs these giveaways at all is in the entry on the Epic Games Store, and the same for Steam, which built the model the rest of PC gaming now follows.
Storage is the real constraint once you start claiming weekly. A modern release can run past 100GB, and claiming costs nothing but installing does. Our explainer on RAM versus storage covers which number matters for what, and if you are weighing a machine to run any of this, our comparison of the best gaming laptops covers seven current RTX 50 machines.
For the free-to-play shooters in particular, input matters more than most people expect. The picks in our roundup of the best gaming mouse are chosen on sensor and weight rather than lighting, which is the part that actually shows up in a game like Counter-Strike.
Frequently Asked Questions
Are free PC games from Epic really free to keep?
Yes. A game claimed inside its giveaway window goes into your Epic library permanently and behaves exactly like a purchase at $0. You do not need to install it to keep it, there is no subscription attached, and it does not expire when the promotion ends. What you cannot do is claim it after the window closes, which for this week means after October 8, 2026.
How often does Epic give away free games?
Weekly, and the schedule is published in advance. Epic confirms upcoming titles ahead of time, which is why the table on this page already runs months out. The pattern changes during the December holidays, when the giveaways usually come daily rather than weekly.
Does Steam give away free games you can keep?
Rarely. Free games on Steam are mostly free-to-play rather than giveaways, and it runs frequent free weekends, but permanent giveaways of paid games are uncommon there and are not on a schedule. If you want free games to keep on a predictable basis, Epic is the store that does it; Steam is where the free-to-play games with the biggest player counts live.
Do free to play games cost money later?
Not necessarily, but they are designed so that some players spend. Counter-Strike 2 and Dota 2 are the cleanest examples on this page because the competitive game is entirely free and the spending is cosmetic, with every Dota 2 hero available from the start. Others gate characters or progression behind a battle pass. The download is free in every case; what varies is how much the game asks for afterwards.
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