Epic’s weekly drop is rarely this strange, and that is the point. Until Thursday, 3 September 2026 — about 8:00 a.m. Pacific, 11:00 a.m. Eastern, 8:30 p.m. India time — two games that have almost nothing in common are sitting on the store at ₹0. Both normally list around $24.99. Click Get, confirm a zero-rupee checkout, and they stay in the account even after the sale clock dies.

One strands you in a floating graveyard. The other hands you a broken ranch and a bloodline spreadsheet. If you have an Epic login and a few minutes, both are worth parking in the library before the window slams.

Breathedge — a first-person sci-fi survival comedy
This is the loud one. RedRuins Softworks built a first-person survival adventure and then refused to treat space with any dignity. You play “the Man.” You were escorting your grandfather’s coffin on a luxury space hearse. The ship tears itself apart. Now the void is full of wreckage, frozen condiments, dead passengers, and one immortal chicken that doubles as a tool, a companion, and a running gag.

Type of game, in plain language: open-space survival with crafting, plus a story-driven adventure that later tightens into more linear chapters. Think Subnautica if someone swapped the ocean for zero gravity and hired a comedian who will not stop talking. Early hours are the good meat — oxygen ticking down, scraps turned into tools, little vehicles, a station that slowly becomes yours. Later chapters drop a lot of that sandbox and lean on plot and corridors. Critics split on that shift. Players on Steam still landed in Mostly Positive territory, a few thousand reviews deep.

The timing is not an accident. Breathedge 2 slipped into early access on 31 August. Epic is handing out the original as a taste test. If the jokes land and the scavenging loop clicks, the sequel is already waiting. If the narrator wears you out, you lost nothing but disk space.

The wreckage is the real star. Debris fields, coffins, half-ships, and the quiet panic of a shrinking air tank — that first stretch is the reason this giveaway is not junk.

Then the game remembers it is also a black comedy and starts floating bodies and mutant mess through the same beautiful void. Fair warning: the humour is proud of itself. Some people bounce. Some people stay for the chicken.

Rival Stars Horse Racing: Desktop Edition — a racing sim wearing a ranch manager’s hat
PikPok’s Desktop Edition is the calm twin. It started as a mobile game. The PC and Mac version stripped the microtransactions and left a full purchase loop: raise horses, race them, breed them, fix the family ranch. Steam’s pile of reviews sits Very Positive, north of five thousand last count.

Type of game: sports racing plus life-sim management plus a genetics puzzle. You inherit a tired homestead. Prestige missions act like a light RPG ladder. On the track you ride flat races, steeplechase, and cross-country. Off the track you train stats, hire help, upgrade barns, and decide which stallion should meet which mare. Coat colour, hidden genes, speed, sprint energy, jump — breeding is not a cosmetic button. A bad pairing wastes months of play. A good one becomes the farm’s entire personality.

Races use motion-captured movement and loud commentary. There is online multiplayer, a horse creator you can share, photo mode, and a quiet “just ride the meadow” option if the career grind starts shouting. It is not Forza. It is not Stardew Valley. It is the odd middle thing people who actually like horses have been asking stores to take seriously.

Two types, one checkout
If you want tension, scavenging, and a story that mocks the genre while using every trick in it — grab Breathedge. If you want a slower loop, living animals, and a career you can sink evenings into without dying of vacuum — grab Rival Stars. Most people should take both. Claiming costs nothing. Installing can wait.

Next week’s free slot is already named: Alone With You, a quieter pixel sci-fi, from 3 to 10 September. That is tomorrow’s problem. These two leave first.

A note for anyone reading this on a cheap laptop in a city that still treats games like a vice. Epic’s Thursday ritual is the closest thing a lot of Indian PC players have to a public library. Official speeches talk digital India. Official policy still prices consoles like jewellery and slaps the heaviest GST slab on anything that looks like betting. Meanwhile a New Zealand studio and a small survival team are giving away complete games if you can keep an email password. The state will not build that on-ramp. A store fighting Steam will, because it wants your account. Take the games. The sermon can wait.

How to lock them in
Open the Epic Games Store on PC or in a browser. Sign in or make a free account. Open each game page. Hit Get. Confirm ₹0.00. Do not wait to install. The claim is the only thing that expires on 3 September.

Disclaimer: Prices, claim windows, and store terms can change. This is a consumer guide, not financial advice. A free claim still requires an Epic account and acceptance of that store’s terms.