In brief: Few combinations can match Halloween and free games. Bringing the two together is The Epic Games Store, which is currently giving away The Evil Within. It will be followed by the game's successor, The Evil Within 2, next week.
Released back in 2014, The Evil Within comes from Resident Evil series creator Shinji Mikami. If you love the genre's usual staples of stealth and survival, you'll probably like this one. It also packs a ton of gore into the proceedings along with a few genuinely unnerving moments, including plenty of jump scares and chase sections.
While it might not live up to Mikami's most famous works, there's plenty for survival horror fans to enjoy when playing The Evil Within. The reviews were mostly positive on release, and it's definitely worth a free try if you've never played it before.
The Evil Within was also given a few new features in 2021, including a first-person mode, field-of-view options, and longer sprint bursts. You can even give yourself infinite ammo if you find things are too tough, though Polygon notes that you will also need a Bethesda.net account for some of these perks.
The second title Epic Games is giving away this week is Eternal Threads. It's described as a single-player, first-person story-driven puzzle game of time manipulation, choice and consequence. It was released in 2022 and has a Very Positive rating on Steam.
While The Evil Within gained mostly good reviews, its successor, next week's Epic Games Store giveaway, has been hailed as the better game. Released in 2017, The Evil Within 2 was directed by John Johanas and is much more ambitious than its predecessor, thanks to an open-world-like structure with sizable maps. It's also where you'll find the infamous final boss monster, which is one of the main things this writer remembers from his playthrough.
The second free game next week is Tandem: A Tale of Shadows, a puzzle platformer with a Very Positive Steam rating. It actually looks pretty good.
The Evil Within and Eternal Threads can be grabbed gratis right now up until October 26. That's when The Evil Within 2 and Tandem: A Tale of Shadows will be given away, up until November 2.