this post was submitted on 02 May 2025
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It is still Epic Games, therefore I will continue my streak to not buy from them and claim all the free games without playing them.
I gave up on the free games at this point. Just too much of a hassle to check regularly with what little free time I have as I ironically post mid day.
They're also encumbered with Epic spyware, so despite having collected some of those free games early on, I won't even run them (or the Epic store app) anymore.
You can use Heroic Games Launcher to download and play Epic games. It doesn’t have any kind of online functionality for the games, plus I block them in my firewall so no calls home. Works great for single player games. Usually end up buying it on Steam if I like the game but it’s great to check stuff out without having to deal with the Epic launcher.
Works on Steam Deck too! Also has GoG and Amazon Games support.
I could, but those games contain and execute Epic code. (I checked this by examining the binaries, which is probably against Epic's terms of service, but I don't care if they find out and ban me.) This would still be true even if they were launched with Heroic or some other launcher. After the snooping that Epic code has already been caught doing, I don't trust it to run on my systems.
Wise decision.
Crack the executables and then block them in your firewall. Though it's mostly just changes in the directories for where the game and its saves are located that differ from Steam or GOG releases.