In the early hours of May 14, 2020, a Thursday, Epic Games posted a notice on its official profile that Grand Theft Auto V would be the next free game on the Epic Games Store. Those who rushed to the store early found nothing, and for a few hours it seemed the promise would be left hanging. It wasn’t: Rockstar confirmed that GTA V Premium Edition would be available for free on Epic’s store from that May 14 until May 21, 2020. Anyone who claimed the game within the deadline kept it forever in their library.
To gauge the size of the offer: GTA V, from Rockstar North, was released in September 2013 for PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360, reached PlayStation 4 and Xbox One in November 2014 and PC in April 2015. By the time of the promotion, it was already one of the best-selling games in history, and its online mode, GTA Online, was still receiving new content. The story follows three protagonists, Michael, Franklin and Trevor, in a series of heists around Los Santos, Rockstar’s version of Los Angeles.
Epic’s store, opened in December 2018, used free-game giveaways to attract an audience in its fight with Steam: first one game every two weeks and, from June 2019, one a week. GTA V was, by far, the heaviest name in that strategy up to that point.
What came next
Demand was huge. More than 7 million new users signed up for the Epic Games Store to claim the game, in addition to those who already had an account, and the store’s servers even went down during the promotion. Later, GTA V got PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X|S versions in March 2022 and passed 230 million copies shipped, the second best-selling game of all time. Its successor, Grand Theft Auto VI, is scheduled for release in November 2026.
Where to buy
Source: Rockstar Games / Epic Games.
Max Xavier
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