2020 may have seen several aspects of normal life thrown into disarray thanks to a global pandemic, but one thing people can rely on to remain unchanged are Black Friday sales. Only a few days remain before the holiday shopping season begins in earnest, and retailers everywhere are already gearing up to unleash some of the best gaming-related deals of the year. This will include the Epic Games Store, which has confirmed that it will be hosting a Black Friday sale of its own.
In keeping with Black Friday tradition, Epic Games announced that its digital storefront will actually be kicking off before Friday. According to the schedule it revealed today, the Epic Games Store’s newest Black Friday sale will go live this Thursday, November 26, starting at 8:00 AM PST/11:00 AM EST, and will run an entire week until December 3.
Other than that, though, not much else has been revealed, with Epic merely promising “stellar savings” and reminding store-goers to wishlist any games they’re interested in, in case they get discounted. With only two days before things get started, odds are the games that are going on sale won’t be revealed until Thursday. That being said, the general trend with Epic’s sales is to offer dozens of AAA and indie games for up to 75% off, so store-goers should expect to find some of the best PC deals around here.
In the meantime, they can get an early start on great deals with this week’s selection of free games. Right now, Elite Dangerous and The World Next Door are available to download at no cost, and will remain so until Thursday, at which point MudRunner will become the Epic Games Store’s next free game.
Of course, the Epic Games Store likely won’t be the only major PC storefront offering discounts this weekend. While Valve has yet to officially announce that it will be hosting a Black Friday sale on Steam this year, reports have emerged claiming that the Steam Autumn Sale will take place as soon as tomorrow. Like the Epic Games Store, it’s not yet known which games will be getting discounted, so it remains to be seen which store’s offerings will prove to be the most appealing.
While Steam has long been considered the leading PC game platform, and continues to be for the most part, the Epic Games Store has experienced massive growth in the last two years, having gained around 61 million monthly users and proven itself to be a strong competitor. As such, it will be interesting to see how much additional momentum this week’s Black Friday sale could give it.