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Today, December 28, the Epic Games Store is giving away SKALD: Against the Black Priory for the next 24 hours. It is a 2024 retro-style RPG that looks like a lost Commodore 64 game but plays with modern mechanical polish. If you miss the giveaway window, you can still find it for 50% off on the Steam Store until January 5. For those looking for the absolute lowest price, G2A (affiliate link) currently has keys for approximately $4.20, which is a 72% discount from the standard retail price.
SKALD is a party-based RPG that leans heavily into Lovecraftian themes and gritty fantasy. You lead a group of mercenaries through a world filled with body horror and ancient, awakening gods. The combat is turn-based and tactical, but the story is the real draw here, featuring branching dialogue and dice rolls that actually matter for your survival.4 It avoids the hand-holding common in modern RPGs, forcing you to manage your party’s resources and sanity in a world that feels genuinely dangerous. It is a dense, high-quality experience for anyone who values strong writing and a specific, lo-fi aesthetic.
Beyond the PC giveaway, you should also head to the mobile Epic Games Store to claim Monument Valley 1 and Monument Valley 2 for free until January 1. These are iconic perspective-based puzzle games inspired by M.C. Escher’s impossible architecture. They are short, polished, and rely on visual storytelling rather than dialogue. To get them, open the Epic Store on your phone and add them to your library. They usually cost around $4 each, so grabbing the pair for free is an excellent deal for your mobile library.
You have until December 29 at 11:00 AM ET to secure SKALD for your PC. The Monument Valley games will remain free for a few more days, giving you time to set them up on your Android or iOS device. This lineup is particularly resourceful because it offers a mix of high-stakes RPG mechanics and relaxing puzzle logic. Whether you are rolling dice to survive a pixelated cult or shifting golden towers on your phone, these titles offer more creative value than most of the big-budget releases that filled the rumor lists earlier this month.
The post Retro Horror and Mobile Classics: Today’s Epic Store Picks appeared first on Game Reviews, News, Videos & More for Every Gamer – PC, PlayStation, Xbox in 2026.
If you were hoping for another gritty shooter or a mainstream AAA title, today’s reveal might surprise you. Epic is continuing its streak of “hidden gem” picks with Sorry We’re Closed, a 2024 survival horror title that feels more like an underground art project than a standard video game.
Forget the tired tropes of the genre; this is survival horror with a high-fashion, punk-rock soul.
You play as Michelle, a woman living a fairly mundane life until she is cursed by a powerful archdemon. You have exactly three days to find a way to break the curse or face eternal damnation. It’s a tight, stressful narrative where your dialogue choices and actions directly influence which of the multiple endings you’ll hit.
Sorry We’re Closed usually goes for $20. It’s short, punchy, and perfect for a weekend playthrough. If you want something that prioritizes atmosphere and unique storytelling over budget-bloat, this is a must-add to your library.
You have until December 22 at 11:00 AM ET to claim it for free
The post Resident Evil Meets Neon-Punk: Today’s Epic Mystery Game is ‘Sorry We’re Closed’ appeared first on Game Reviews, News, Videos & More for Every Gamer – PC, PlayStation, Xbox in 2026.
The Epic Games holiday marathon continues, and if you were expecting another flashy, neon-soaked adventure like yesterday, think again. Today, December 20, Epic is taking us into the dirt, the dark, and the downright cursed with stealth FPS Blood West.
This is the fourth game in the lineup, and it further cements the fact that the “mainstream blockbuster” leaks were way off the mark. Instead, we’re getting a gritty, low-poly masterpiece that feels like a lost artifact from the late 90s.
Imagine if the original Thief games had a baby with S.T.A.L.K.E.R., and then that baby was raised in a haunted version of the Wild West.
You play as an undead gunslinger—literally brought back from the dead by mysterious spirits—to “clean up” the frontier. But this isn’t a power fantasy. In the Barren Lands, everything wants you back in the grave, and usually, it only takes a couple of hits to put you there.
Don’t let the “retro” graphics fool you. The low-poly, pixelated look is a deliberate choice that makes the lighting and shadows feel much more oppressive. It’s “boomer shooter” tech used to create a survival horror experience that feels massive, with three huge open-ended maps to explore.
Blood West (usually $24.99) is free on the Epic Games Store right now. You have until December 21 at 11:00 AM ET to add it to your library.
If you’re tired of modern games holding your hand with quest markers and regenerating health, this is the challenge you’ve been looking for. Just remember: in these lands, ammo is more precious than gold.
The post Survival of the Deadest: Why Today’s Freebie ‘Blood West’ is a Must-Grab on Epic appeared first on Game Reviews, News, Videos & More for Every Gamer – PC, PlayStation, Xbox in 2026.
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Knights of Frontier Valley is a challenging roguelike RPG inspired by classic titles where you go from humble beginnings to glory in a procedurally generated open world filled with tactical combat and impactful choices.
In Knights of Frontier Valley you guide an adventurer through years of life in a dynamic world with realistic day/night cycles, seasons, and weather. You fight in gridless turn-based tactical combat … Read More
The post Knights of Frontier Valley – Beta Sign Up first appeared on Alpha Beta Gamer.
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HIGH The buildup to the second boss fight.
LOW The actual second boss fight.
WTF “Little guys for big jobs” is a profoundly weird way to describe bullets.
There’s nothing slick about Blood West. It’s a slow, lumbering thing – an exercise in patience, demanding to be taken on its own terms.
My first forays into this stealth focused, first-person shooter were mired in frustration, while my seemingly interminable failures put the main character’s immortality to the test. However, once I was willing to abandon my preconceived heuristics and fully lean into Blood West’s loop, I loved every second of it.
Recently resurrected by a talking cow skull of dubious origins, the player takes control of an unnamed, undead gunslinger tasked with defeating a great evil corrupting the land. Structured as small open-worlds, players will explore haunted canyons, swamps, and mountain ranges across the American old west. Light RPG elements allow for some character customization, but make no mistake, spirits, mutants, and gaggles of gun-toting birdmen offer stiff resistance to incautious players, and maintaining a low profile is crucial.
Impulse and quick reflexes find no purchase in Blood West – every action must be carefully considered, with a solid contingency plan in place should things go awry. Stand-up fights netted poor results for this spooky cowpoke, and each encounter turned into a tactical calculus.
Take the simple act of equipping weapons – players are only able to swap between two at a time, one large and one small. Is it more prudent to take the bow, able to stealthily dispatch weaker enemies from afar? Or is it better to knife them in the back, relying on the close quarters fury of a double-barreled shotgun should that colossal wendigo stomping in the background take notice? These questions become existential as health is fleeting, and death is severely punished on the plains of Blood West.
Each defeat (and subsequent resurrection) results in a “soul flaw” — a semi-permanent status effect that negatively impacts a core stat such as health, stamina, or sneaking ability. These compound with each death, worsening up to three times. While they can eventually be remedied, these flaws do nothing to make the hostile world of Blood West any easier.
While Blood West is punishing when approached as a typical first-person shooter, it is immensely rewarding as a tactical stealth experience. Its open-ended structure offers players abundant freedom in tackling objectives, and most areas can be approached from any direction. I came to organize my play into discreet sorties, probing further into the wilderness and systematically clearing areas of enemies before returning to base camp to trade treasure with the merchant and heal up. Defeated enemies stay dead until the player rests or resurrects, and I began to feel a measure of control over my environment when I realized I could stay alive much longer with the most important tactic of all – knowing when to cut bait.
Eventually, I came to realize the majority of my deaths in Blood West were a result of my own hubris – deciding to take a snap headshot without properly scouting the area, accidentally alerting a horde of monsters in the process, or pressing into uncharted territory despite a depleted health bar. Individual enemies are generally not difficult on their own, and most can be outrun should they become overwhelming. That’s not to say that every death is the player’s fault, but I rarely felt Blood West was unfair and often found my own stubbornness and inattention to be the source of any frustration.
Careful attention is not only important for combat but also exploration. Whether it’s a moored steamboat off the beaten track or a lonely cabin on a hilltop, there is sure to be loot worth finding. As I began to explore the more far-flung corners of the map, I found powerful, unique items that literally changed the way I approached Blood West – a rifle that heals forty health with every headshot, or a trinket that offered a twenty percent boost to health, stamina, and experience points. Some of these items shaped my play for hours to come, and it’s not an exaggeration to say that I might not have rolled credits in Blood West without them.
There is one area where Blood West falls short, however – the boss fights. Each act is structured around tracking and exterminating an evil entity, and the narrative revolves around the buildup to these encounters. Unfortunately, these battles are uniformly disappointing and rely on mechanics that stray from Blood West’s strengths. Whether it’s dexterity-based dodging or battles of attrition, gone is the emphasis on thoughtful, strategic play that forms Blood West’s foundation. While certainly a letdown, these criticisms amount to little more than quibbles in the wake of all that Blood West does right.
Blood West won’t be for everyone, but those willing to go along with its demanding play and deliberate pacing will find an engaging experience that celebrates the player’s wits as much as reflexes. I won’t soon forget the feeling of being low on ammo, even lower on health and deep behind enemy lines, knowing I should turn back, but forging ahead anyway, intoxicated by what treasure could be around the next corner – because more than likely, it’s worth it.
Rating: 8.5 out of 10
Buy Blood West: PS5 – Xbox – PC
Disclosures: This game is developed by Hyperstrange and published by New Blood Interactive LLC. It is currently available on PC, PS5, and XBX/S. This copy of the game was obtained via publisher and reviewed on the PS5. Approximately 30 hours of play were devoted to the single-player mode, and the primary campaign was completed, but the DLC campaign was not completed. There are no multiplayer modes.
Parents: According to the ESRB, this game is rated M and contains Blood, Use of Alcohol and Tobacco, Violence. This game is definitely not aimed at children. While the visuals are generally low fidelity and rendered in a cartoony, non-realistic fashion, there is plenty of blood and gore. Enemies can be killed with various firearms, knives, and swords. When killed, enemies will spray blood out and can be partially dismembered with certain weapons. Alcohol and tobacco can be consumed as power-ups.
Colorblind Modes: There are no colorblind modes available.
Deaf & Hard of Hearing Gamers: This game only offers subtitles in certain instances. Primary dialogue between characters is fully subtitled, but the player’s character makes many comments throughout gameplay that are not subtitled at all. While this game offers two options for text size, this only applies to certain menus and did not impact the text in subtitled dialogue. This game relies heavily on stealth, and when playing without sound I found it more difficult to remain unseen and, consequently, died more frequently due to enemy noises that are not represented visually. The missing in-game subtitles combined with the lack of visual indicators for key contextual noises means this game is not fully accessible.
Remappable Controls: Yes, this game offers fully remappable controls.
The post Blood West Review appeared first on Gamecritics.com.
2003’s Manhunt is a brutal, gritty title that occupies a strange place in Rockstar’s catalog as something that should be considered the company’s best work, yet it remains overshadowed by their own mega-hit franchises. This bleak, uncompromising meditation on the nature of voyeurism questioned the player’s participation in horrific bloodshed, and has since become something of a cult title — and PIGFACE is certainly one of its descendants.
Set in a post-industrial wasteland, PIGFACE places players in the role of a woman with a bomb in her head. Faceless handlers have assigned her to murder members of a drug-dealing gang across a handful of locations, and what little characterization the game offers has those same handlers shocked by how little pushback they receive from their living weapon – almost as if she’s as much down for all the murder as the people playing the game. The gameplay is as basic as the graphics – this looks like a Quake-era experience and feels like gritty, vicious shooters of that time, back when most titles were developed by a handful of people and when it was easier to smuggle bizarre and extreme content into even major titles.
After choosing a mission, the player picks their loadout from a decent arsenal – but in a twist that feels strange for an FPS (and may have been inherited from Manhunt) the player can only bring a single ranged weapon. This creates a bit of awkwardness, as the player is asked to decide on a playstyle before they have a sense of what the level is like, and pre-mission the briefings are not particularly voluminous. So, there’s often nothing to do but guess whether a sniper rifle or a shotgun is better for any given area, and if that doesn’t pan out, they can hope to snag a more appropriate weapon off of a dead body somewhere along the way.
The strange part is that for a game seemingly built around experimentation and taking chances, the developers punish players harshly for mistakes. Any time they fail a mission, a steep financial penalty is incurred. While guns only have to be bought once and ammo is free, healing syringes cost money, ensuring that if a player fails a particularly difficult level more than a couple of times, they’ll be forced to try again with even fewer resources, and consequently, less chance of success.
Enemy AI is also a little on the spare side at this point. I’m sure it’s a difficult to balance and all of the enemies can be best described as drug-addled wastrels, but they were remarkably unobservant and unresponsive whenever violence kicked off — enemies will watch a guard’s head get blown off with a sniper rifle, shrug, and then get right back to their patrol seconds later. Setting off explosives or blasting away with a machine gun might attract reinforcements, or it might not – enemies were largely unpredictable in an ‘is the AI broken and not responding to triggers?‘ kind of way.
Still, there’s plenty to be optimistic about here. The violence is every bit as brutal and upsetting as one would hope given PIGFACE’s obvious inspiration. There are huge blood spatters with every shot, and enemies scramble around and scream as they’re injured, making the whole thing feel doubly unpleasant.
This unpleasantness also permeates every bit of the world. Every room is full of trash and dirty needles. The player is asked to shut down drug factories, and all they find are a few drums and jars crudely linked together with hoses and tape. This game is about the absolute lowest-tier of criminal being executed by an assassin who lives in a dingy one-room apartment next to a set of elevated train tracks. It’s a celebration of the grindhouse aesthetic and seemingly pointless violence – although as the story gets developed in later updates, that might well change.
PIGFACE is in a rough Early Access state at the moment, with inconsistent enemies and no real narrative to speak of. I don’t expect the graphics to get any better – the low-end look is the point — and it’s a clear throwback to a rougher, more brutal past. Anyone lamenting that we never got a Manhunt 3 will find a lot to love here.
Assuming gameplay is rebalanced and more levels are added – I beat all five in just under an hour – this is extremely promising. Hopefully the devs manage to turn it into a more complete experience, as games this heartlessly brutal are few and far between.
Or maybe this kind of game being rare is a good thing? I’ll let history be the judge.
The post PIGFACE Preview appeared first on Gamecritics.com.
