Epic Games Store Free Games for March 31 Take a Page from PS Plus’ Old Playbook

The Epic Games Store has announced the two free games it will be offering on March 31, Total War: Warhammer and City of Brass, respectively. A large strategy game featuring epic fantasy battles, the former, while the latter is a first-person dungeon crawler in which players search for a hidden treasure in an Arabian Nights-inspired city, are both available for purchase. These are the last free games available for download for the month of March, and as the month draws to a close, many gamers will be interested to see what’s available on the Epic Games Store, PlayStation Plus, Games with Gold, and Xbox Game Pass in April.

It appears that this collection of Epic Games Store games is taking a page from the playbook of PlayStation Plus, which is interesting. It’s not that the games offered gratis as part of the PlayStation Plus programme are predictable, but there are some similarities that gamers might see if they pay attention. For example, there was a significant quality increase in the months preceding up to PS5 (PS Plus was exploited to generate excitement), every year has a very busy March in terms of PS Plus releases, and prior to that, there was another trend.

Old PS Plus Pattern, New Epic Games Store Free Games

From about mid-2019 to early-2020, give or take a few months, the PlayStation Plus service delivered games in a pattern that was immediately distinguishable as large game/niche game. Every month during this time period saw just two new releases, with one of them being a large, visually stunning game that many people would certainly like. The second release was usually reduced in size, and it was always targeted at a certain demographic in some fashion. While not a direct 1:1 comparison, this strategy is visible in the Epic Games Store releases from this week, which are listed below.

Total War: Warhammer is the most enticing game, as it has received positive reviews and is based on the theme of war, which is a popular video game idea. Strategy games are not the most popular genre (they are not first-person shooters), but when you mix the franchise, the positive ratings, and the genre, many people are likely to pick it up and play it a few times. After all, strategy games are growing increasingly popular, as seen by titles such as Total War: Rome II and Civilization VI.