Epic Games Store's 2024 Freebies Were a Smart Obsidian Primer

When players talk about Epic Games Store freebies, the conversation often focuses on library growth: another title, another folder, another backlog entry. The April 4, 2024 promotion is a useful reminder that a giveaway can do more than pad a collection. That week, the storefront offered Thief and The Outer Worlds: Spacer's Choice Edition, pairing a stealth-action revival with an Obsidian Entertainment action RPG. The lineup may not have been designed as a deliberate advertisement, but it worked like one anyway.

Epic has used cross-promotion before. The Elder Scrolls Online giveaway once lined up with a Fortnite promotion that let players earn a limited-time Elder Scrolls-themed skin. That is the kind of scheduling that makes a free game feel like part of a larger marketing puzzle. The April 2024 pair was quieter, yet the result was similar: players who claimed The Outer Worlds got a long, choice-heavy RPG right when Obsidian's next major project, Avowed, was still on the horizon.

Thief deserves its own nod. For fans of Eidos-Montreal, it is an interesting artifact from the early PS4 and Xbox One era, a stealth-action game with a specific mood and a divisive reputation. It was not the headline of the week for everyone, though. The Outer Worlds was the more intriguing offer because it represented Obsidian at its most recognizable.

Game	Genre	Why it stood out	Claim window
Thief	Stealth-action	Eidos-Montreal mood piece from the early PS4 and Xbox One era	April 4 to April 11, 2024
The Outer Worlds: Spacer's Choice Edition	Action RPG	Obsidian's 2019 choice-driven RPG with satire, companions, and build freedom	April 4 to April 11, 2024

🎮 The Outer Worlds arrived with strong recognition as one of 2019's best RPGs. Its premise is unusual: history took a different path, space colonization unfolded under corporate pressure, and a transport ship malfunctions en route to a colony. Only one passenger survives—the player character. From there, the game hands players a wide range of decisions, from quest solutions to companion lineups. Even character creation matters, because personality traits picked before the story begins can shape how the journey plays out. That is a lot of RPG to give away, and Epic had already offered The Outer Worlds free in December 2023, which made the April 2024 return feel like a second chance for anyone who missed it.

Critics were mixed on combat, and that is fair. The shooting and melee never carried the same polish as the writing. Still, The Outer Worlds has its own flavor. It is not trying to be a generic fantasy epic; it is a corporate satire in space, with sharp dialogue and companions who do more than stand around. For players new to Obsidian, it works as a primer. It shows what the studio values: player agency, reactive quests, memorable NPCs, and systems that encourage replay. That made the timing especially clever.

By 2026, the context has shifted. Avowed is no longer an upcoming release; it launched in February 2025. The original article framed the freebie as a chance to study Obsidian's design before Avowed arrived, and that framing now reads like a time capsule. Players can look back and see how the promotion functioned as a soft advertisement without ever calling itself one. The Outer Worlds and Avowed are not the same genre flavor—one is science fiction, the other is fantasy—but they share the studio's DNA. Avowed takes place in the same universe as Pillars of Eternity, casts the player as an envoy of Aedyr investigating a strange plague, and promises swords, magic, shields, and guns alongside choice-driven role-playing. The throughline is not setting; it is design philosophy.

That is why the April 2024 giveaway still matters as a case study. It gave players hours of content, introduced Obsidian to newcomers, and quietly warmed up interest in the studio's next RPG. The offer expired on April 11, 2024, so anyone reading in 2026 should not expect those games to be free now. The lesson is about timing. A free game can be a gift, a library builder, and a marketing beat all at once. Epic may not have planned the April 2024 lineup as an Obsidian advertisement, but it worked like one—and players who claimed The Outer Worlds got a substantial RPG in the bargain. 🚀