Free Sable Open World Exploration
Zen out in the vast deserts of Midden with this week’s free Epic Games Store drop: Sable. The hand-drawn indie favorite is available to claim and keep forever from now until July 3 at 11 AM ET. If you missed it at launch or want a break from overbearing quest markers and mini-maps, this is your moment.
Sable is an open-world exploration game that trades combat and chaos for atmosphere, discovery, and narrative subtlety. You play as Sable, a young woman leaving her clan to embark on her Gliding—a rite of passage that will take her across futuristic ruins, ancient monoliths, canyons filled with decaying tech, and quiet mysteries. The presentation feels like a Moebius comic coming to life, with cel-shaded desert vistas and soft ambient music that pushes it closer to a playable concept album than a checklist-heavy game.
What sets Sable apart isn’t its size or scale, but its refusal to rush you. There’s no combat, no fail states, and no urge to constantly push forward. Instead, you’re rewarded for slowing down, absorbing the visual language of the world, and allowing Sable’s own internal reflections to guide you. For anyone burnt out on grindy open-worlds, it hits like a tonic.
And if you’re worried about getting bored—don’t. The game’s economy of design means every encounter feels intentional. Whether it’s trading beetle shells with nomads or gliding over rust-stained sand with your customizable hoverbike, Sable builds its charm through mood and tone, not mechanics. It’s also short enough to complete in a long weekend if you treat yourself right.
If that sounds like a change of pace worth firing up, grab Sable while you can. Once July 3 hits, the deal’s gone. But the good news? It’s being replaced by not just one but two more inventive free games.
Double Pick Incoming: Backpack Hero & Figment
Starting July 3, Epic doubles up with Backpack Hero and Figment—two smaller-scale gems that couldn’t be more different but still slot nicely into a growing and diverse free games library.
Backpack Hero turns classic roguelike combat into a surprisingly tense puzzle game, where the layout of your backpack determines your success. Items don’t just have stats—their relative positions inside your grid matter hugely. A shield needs to be beside an armor piece to block effectively. Potions take up odd-shaped space you might need for a weapon. It’s part deck-builder, part inventory Tetris, and fully addicting. This isn’t just another loop-based dungeon crawler—it’s something engineered for those of us who used to obsess over Resident Evil 4’s attaché case screen.
Then there’s Figment, an artsy, musical action-adventure that takes place in the recesses of the human mind. Developed by Bedtime Digital Games, it gives voice and shape to fear, anxiety, and doubt—then lets you fight those manifestations with rhythmic puzzles and dreamlike boss fights. Between its melodic themes, watercolor visuals, and emotional clarity, it ends up feeling closer to a playable animated short film than a traditional game—but that’s the draw. It taps into something most games don’t even attempt.
Between the stylized minimalism of Sable, the crunchy spatial tactics of Backpack Hero, and the narrative abstraction of Figment, Epic’s lineup isn’t just free—it’s curated. None of these would’ve made sense on physical shelves in the PS2 era. But in 2024? They all thrive in digital libraries with nothing to lose.
Epic’s Free Game Strategy Keeps Hitting
Epic’s weekly drops continue to feel less like fluff and more like intentional shots at gaming’s blindspots. While big-budget players scramble to cram more hours and systems into their $70 titles, Epic’s offering up smart, smaller-format games that respect your time and attention.
Yes, the system’s been around for years. But lately, it’s morphed into something oddly reliable—and occasionally revelatory. Whether it’s a meditative art piece, an underground niche RPG, or a cult classic you never finished, there’s value in checking in every Thursday morning. And this week’s Sable-to-Backpack-Figment handoff is a pretty perfect example of that.
Don’t sleep on this one. Your future self doing inventory Tetris on a dungeon floor might thank you.
