Get Two of Obsidian Entertainment’s Best PC RPGs for Free

I love isometric RPGs. I grew up on Baldur’s Gate, I believe Planescape: Torment is the second-best video game ever made, and I’ve sunk more than 35 hours into beating everything I possibly could in Obsidian Entertainment’s Tyranny, whose evil-centric story I absolutely devoured.

If that’s not an endorsement, I don’t know what is, so hopefully you’re now suitably excited to learn that Tyranny is completely free for you to purchase through December 17. Once you “buy” the Windows-only version via the Epic Games store, you’ll be able to play it forever. No hitches.

You’re even getting the “Gold” version of the game, which includes all the expansions and downloadable content. That’d normally set you back $100 — so says Steam, at least — so getting that for nothing is a pretty great deal. All you need to grab it is an Epic Games account, which is also free, and the Epic Games Launcher app. Set up your account, install the app, and navigate down to the can’t-miss-it freebie section:

As you’ll have noticed, you can also get the “Definitive Edition” of Pillars of Eternity for free (an $100 value, if you were to buy the game and all its DLC separately). It’s another incredible isometric RPG that will either cause you to waste away tens of hours of your time — in the best sense of the phrase — or to give up after an hour because you got smoked by an early pack of enemies. I urge you to work through those struggles, though, as Pillars is a trickier title to master.

Keep pushing forward and you’ll find it’s a great, albeit complicated, RPG. Perhaps consider playing this one on Normal (or Easy) until you’ve really mastered the basics of the game. In fact, you’ll probably end up restarting your playthrough after you’ve sunk some time into it, as you’ll realise that your newbie character builds just don’t make as much sense as you thought they would. You’ll probably want to give the game a second shot once you have a good sense of how it plays. Once you do that, you’ll then find yourself steamrolling everything you encounter. And that’s fun!

I find that much of the joy of these kinds of RPGs — ones that give you considerable ability to customise your characters’ stats, abilities, equipment, and strategies — is mastering the mechanics. And once you’ve done that, hoo-boy, can you give yourself a challenge by tackling the game on a higher difficulty. But even if that sounds like a lot of work, hell, play through Pillars and Tyranny on Easy mode, if you want. The storytelling is just as important as a good challenge, and neither of these free RPGs will let you down.