In October 2021, developer Eidos-Montréal, the team behind the basically-dead live-service title Marvel’s Avengers, launched Guardians of the Galaxy. The single-player, third-person shooter was excellent, offering great combat, likable characters, solid puzzles, and gorgeous environments. It received generally favourable reviews across aggregators Metacritic and OpenCritic, and it defied all our expectations when we reviewed it. Now, a little over two years later, the game is free to download on PC via the Epic Games Store.
That’s right. If you head over to Epic Games’ digital game distribution platform, you can snatch up the action-adventure game for the low cost of free. You just need to create an Epic Games Store account and, up until January 11 at 10 a.m. local time, Guardians of the Galaxy will be yours. There’s nothing else to it.
This is a great deal! Guardians of the Galaxy is truly an underrated piece of Marvel entertainment, one that carries all the bombast of the MCU without any of the baggage. You can jump into the action-adventure game and take control of protagonist Peter “Star-Lord” Quill and his squad, even if you know little to nothing about the Guardians. The mechanics are solid enough to stand on their own, the characters are well-written, and the story beats are great—and if you’re a fan of the comics or the films, you’ll like it even more. That said, the narrative is completely divorced from anything on the silver screen (it’s not canon), so Guardians of the Galaxy is one of the best ways to get interested in the MCU.
Unfortunately, while the game was praised by critics and fans alike, publisher Square Enix wasn’t impressed with what Eidos-Montréal put out. In fact, according to a February 2022 financial filing, Square Enix said the game’s “sales on launch undershot our initial expectations.” Square Enix just can’t be pleased.
Ignoring Square Enix, though, Guardians of the Galaxy is well worth your time. It’s only 17.5 hours long, according to game length tracker How Long To Beat, and is exceptional every step of the way. You totally should grab it while it’s free.
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