Epic Games Is Giving Away One Of 2022’s Most Controversial Games For Free

Is the new Saint's Row even worth playing for free? Much ado was made of the Saint’s Row reboot last year. When I previewed the game, I was unimpressed by its stylistic and tonal changes from the original series. It felt like a crime game run by yuppies that somehow took place in the Fortnite universe.

Look at that image above! It could be a still from the latest Fortnite season. Perhaps that’s fitting, given it’s the latest free offering from Epic Games during their holiday Epic Game Store event. Almost every day, the Fortnite publisher and creator of Unreal Engine is giving away a game for free to PC players, and Saint’s Row is the latest.

The games given away thus far have been: Much of the controversy surrounding Saint’s Row before its release centered around concerns that it would be “woke” which I thought was a little weird. There’s nothing “woke” (which is itself an often confusing and unhelpful pejorative) about having a diverse cast of characters in a modern crime game (or film, or show, etc.) GTA V was very diverse and hardly “woke.” I think a lot of people just reflexively go to this critique (if you can call it that) whenever anything with even a whiff of diversity and inclusion can be found.

Again, my worry about the game was that it looked A) too much like Fortnite; B) too much like what yuppies think crime stories ought to be; and C) boring and uninspired. That last one, especially, appears to have been the case. In Forbes’ review of Saint’s Row, Matt Gardner wrote : But hey, now it’s free so if you’ve been on the fence and aren’t averse to using the Epic Game Store as a launcher, you can try it out without spending a single red cent.

The question now is whether it’s worth your precious time..