Foretales Is Free on Epic Games Store This Week

This week’s Epic Games Store giveaway breaks from the usual two-game format: it’s a single title this time, but a distinctive one. Foretales, a story-driven card adventure from French studio Alkemi, is free to claim until July 30, 2026. Normally priced at $19.99, this marks the first time the nearly four-year-old game has ever been offered for free on Epic.

This is the 54th free game Epic has given away in 2026 alone. Once claimed, it stays in your library permanently, whether you install it right away or not.

How to Claim

1. Head to the Epic Games Store free games page or open the Epic Games Launcher on PC.
2. Find Foretales on the storefront.
3. Click “Get” and complete the zero-cost checkout.

The deadline is July 30, 2026 at 8 AM PT / 11 AM ET / 4 PM BST / 5 PM CEST. After that, the game returns to its regular price.

What Is Foretales?

Developer: Alkemi  |  Publisher: Dear Villagers  |  Released: September 2022 (PC, Nintendo Switch)  |  Regular price: $19.99

Foretales casts players as Volepain, an anthropomorphic shoebill stork and petty thief who begins experiencing visions of an impending catastrophe after stealing a magical lyre. That theft sets off a much larger story: a curse spreading across the realm, a looming prophecy, and a cast of characters whose fates depend entirely on the choices players make along the way.

The game is narrated by Travis Willingham, known for his voice work with Critical Role, which lends the whole experience a distinctly tabletop feel even though it’s played entirely solo.

Mechanically, Foretales presents its entire adventure as a kind of digital card-based board game. Rather than limiting cards to combat, the game uses them as general-purpose tools for exploration, conversation, and problem-solving; a card might represent an item, a clue, a character, or an action, and players string them together to navigate encounters in whatever order and combination makes sense to them. The structure branches significantly, with the game offering multiple distinct storylines and endings depending on the decisions made throughout, encouraging replay to see how different choices play out.

How It Was Received

Foretales launched to a “Strong” rating on OpenCritic, sitting at an average score of 75 across 24 critic reviews. Critics generally praised its inventive approach to narrative design and its unusual use of cards as flexible problem-solving tools rather than the attack-or-defend logic typical of the genre, while some reviews noted the deck-building systems themselves don’t run especially deep compared to dedicated deckbuilders. Even so, several critics described the core gameplay loop as memorable and distinct enough to stand out in a genre that, as one outlet put it, is fairly saturated at this point.

What’s Next: OTXO and Sol Cesto

Epic has already confirmed the following giveaway: starting July 30, players will be able to claim both OTXO, a violent top-down roguelite shooter set inside a shifting, mysterious mansion, and Sol Cesto, an award-winning tactical roguelite from a trio of French developers, set in a subterranean world starved of sunlight. Both will run until August 6, 2026.

Quick Summary

Sources: Epic Games Store · Game Rant · PCGamesN · Neowin · GameGrin · GG.deals · WorthPlaying