It is 2026, and the Epic Games Store still runs its weekly free game giveaway like clockwork—so much so that players sometimes forget just how wild certain weeks were. Rewind to late 2021, and one particularly stacked stretch had the community doing a double take. Thanksgiving did not slow anything down. Every Thursday brought a fresh batch of free titles, and this week's lineup, followed by what came next, was pure chaos in the best way.

🎯 This Week's Haul: Nature Meets Nostalgia

Before December 2 rolled around, EGS users could snag theHunter: Call of the Wild and the Antstream Epic Welcome Pack. That is a textbook one-two punch. The first is a sprawling hunting simulation that drops players into photorealistic wilds where patience and a steady aim matter more than twitch reflexes. The second is a retro arcade hub stuffed with enough nostalgia to make any gamer feel like they just walked into a 1980s arcade with a pocket full of quarters. Neither title demanded a dime, which made the offer genuinely hard to hate.

🎁 Next Up: A Horror Heavyweight and a Brainy Kitty

Once those two titles left the store on December 2, they were replaced by Dead by Daylight and While True: Learn(). These two became the first fresh free games of the new month, available through December 9. On paper, the pair could not be more different—one is a tense asymmetrical horror fest, the other is a puzzle simulation about machine learning and a cat. In practice, that oddball mix was exactly why the Epic Games Store had so many players checking in every single Thursday.

🔪 Dead by Daylight: The Killer Party That Would Not Quit

Dead by Daylight was a seriously juicy get. It is an asymmetrical multiplayer game in which four survivors try to escape while one player takes on the role of a killer. By late 2021, the roster had become a horror fan's dream, featuring licensed characters and villains such as Ghost Face, Resident Evil's Nemesis, and Hellraiser's Pinhead, among many others. The game was deep into its sixth year of support and had reached Chapter 21.5 in terms of post-launch content, with Chapter 22 expected just around the corner. For anyone who had ever considered jumping into the fog, this freebie window was an absolute no-brainer. Adding even more fuel to the fire, a winter event was expected to run from December 9 to December 23, turning the arrival of the game into a full-blown seasonal scarefest.

🧠 While True: Learn(): The Purr-fect Puzzle for Brainiacs

On the opposite end of the spectrum sat While True: Learn(), easily the underdog of the week. This puzzle simulation game revolves around neural networks, big data, artificial intelligence, and—because the internet demands it—a cat. The setup is gloriously odd: the player takes on the role of a coder who learns that their cat is an elite programmer but completely terrible at speaking human. The obvious next step is to build a cat-to-human speech recognition program. Naturally.

Despite not being designed as a formal educational tool, the game won plenty of praise for its sneaky teaching abilities. Developer Luden.io described it as a game for people who want to learn more about machine learning, programming, coding concepts, solving puzzles, keeping the brain busy, improving problem-solving skills, and last but not least, people who simply love cats. It is the kind of title that turns a lazy afternoon into a low-key brain workout, all while a pixelated feline judges every move. For players who like their freebies weird and wonderful, this one was a gem.

📊 A Quick Look at the Lineup

Game	Genre	The Vibe
theHunter: Call of the Wild	Hunting simulation	Peaceful, outdoorsy, patience-testing
Antstream Epic Welcome Pack	Retro arcade collection	Nostalgic, quick, snack-sized
Dead by Daylight	Asymmetrical horror multiplayer	Tense, chaotic, licensed killer energy
While True: Learn()	Puzzle simulation	Brainy, quirky, cat-approved

🏁 Final Thoughts

All in all, the Epic Games Store was not messing around as the year wound down. One week offered a solid hunting simulation and a classic arcade hub, while the next swapped in a horror-based multiplayer phenomenon and an offbeat technical puzzler. It was the kind of lineup that explained exactly why the EGS free game ritual became so hard to ignore. Even now, in 2026, the store continues to hand out free games every month, but few stretches capture that same chaotic energy quite like this one. Players who missed the window can only look back and sigh—hindsight is 20/20, and that week was freebie gold.