On August 12, the Epic Games Store's free games will change, offering up Rebel Galaxy. After an unexpected switch up, the store's current free games are A Plague Tale: Innocence and Minit. The latter replaced previously advertised free game Speed Brawl. While A Plague Tale explores a tale of two siblings against the insurmountable odds of the black death, and Minit maps the Groundhog Day-style exploration of a diverse and comical world, Rebel Galaxy does something entirely different.
The game has players control a massive destroyer gunship. It takes aim at the classic trope of space combat simulators with tiny reticules and blows that formula apart. Rebel Galaxy was released in 2015 by the five-person team at Double Damage Games, including Eric Schaefer and Travis Baldree, who boast designer credits on Diablo, Diablo 2, and Fate. Rebel Galaxy and its sequel, Rebel Galaxy Outlaw, are already on the Epic Games Store, and it is possible that the free release of the original will boost the sequel's sales.
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At the moment, Double Damage Games is working on deliverables from the roadmap of its latest game, Rebel Galaxy Outlaw. Double Damage Games is still developing modkit support for this sequel, and both games were heavily discounted in the Steam Summer Sale 2021. As the game has a more recent sequel, it is not surprising that the original will be free on the Epic Games Store.
Onboarding players to the series can be hugely profitable for franchises like Rebel Galaxy. The first game released in 2015, so making it free is not such a large hit to Double Damage Games in terms of sales. It is arguably more valuable to make Rebel Galaxy free on the Epic Games Store so players who might not otherwise buy the game can become interested.
Rebel Galaxy's slogan is: "Outmatched doesn't mean outgunned." As such, the game has players take control of a huge dreadnought spaceship with immense firepower. The game features an open galaxy where players can explore a huge number of planets. This open-world feature is similar to what has been promised for Starfield, and really lets players experience the expansive wonder of an open universe.
However, Rebel Galaxy is much closer to the unreleased Bethesda game 10th Planet than Starfield. This 1997 title also featured an ambitious world to discover, but was chiefly a space combat simulator. While Starfield will likely focus more on exploration, Rebel Galaxy doubles down on the importance of combat. Although the game does feature several non-violent options, the main thrust of the title's design is on the incredible destructive capabilities of the player's ship.
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Other space games like No Man's Sky focus on the interaction between a plethora of alien races, and Rebel Galaxy does that to some extent. However, a lot of these interactions tend to end in blaster fire. In either case, Rebel Galaxy does emphasize the opportunities that players have available when dealing with different characters across its cosmos.
Like some of the best NPCs in gaming, Rebel Galaxy's characters bring often conflicting agendas, and are ready to enact them with extreme violence should they deem it necessary. Not only do players have the chance to blow an awful lot of spaceships to smithereens, but which ships they choose to destroy can have an impact on many different plots and machinations.
Rebel Galaxy being a space combat simulator does not necessarily distinguish it from the myriad of other science fiction games out there. On the other hand, the position it places the player in for its cosmic confrontations is unique. Rather than the reticule-based, plucky, small-scale dogfights of games like TIE Fighter (or even most of the ship combat in No Man's Sky), Rebel Galaxy allows players to flit between the many battlestations of a huge spaceship.
Interestingly, the game controls more like the ships in Assassin's Creed 4: Black Flag than obvious sci-fi comparisons. In combat, ships can only move from side to side, not up and down, which does make the game a lot more like a pirate simulator than a space combat simulator. As such, the huge impact of broadside cannons and swarms of fighter ships become even more impactful. These intense battles take place atop a punchy and twangy blues-country-rock soundtrack, further distinguishing Rebel Galaxy from other space combat simulators.
Rebel Galaxy will be free on the Epic Games Store on August 12.