All the free games you can grab in January 2025

Free video games may seem too good to be true in this day and age, but there are numerous ways of claiming PC and console games via Epic Games, Xbox Game Pass, PS Plus, the Switch eShop and more.

It can be a little confusing to track everything, because there are a number of different services offering free games for download, and they’re usually only available for a limited time before they go back to full price.

This guide, then, will be regularly updated as new promotional games are added, or when existing offers expire. It should also be noted that while some of these games are absolutely free to claim with no extra conditions, some of the ‘free’ games in this list are perks that come as part of a paid subscription service.

For each of the services below, we’ll make it clear to you which games are entirely free and which need a subscription, so you won’t get caught out by hidden charges.

Epic Games Store weekly free game (PC)

As well as its selection of free-to-play games (more on those at the bottom of this guide), the Epic Games Store usually takes one full-price PC game every week and gives it away for free.

The free games usually change every Thursday, except when there’s a special campaign on (during Christmas, for example, it sometimes rotates them daily instead of weekly).

At the time of writing the current free game is Turmoil, a tongue-in-cheek oil drilling game.

This will remain free until January 16 at 8am PT / 11am ET / 4pm GMT, at which point it will go full-price again and will be replaced by the next free game, Escape Academy.

Prime Gaming ‘free’ games (PC)

If you subscribe to Amazon Prime for free shipping or access to Prime Video, you may not realize that you’re also automatically subscribed to Prime Gaming. Prime Gaming provides a large selection of ‘free’ PC games every month for subscribers.

Obviously, because you have to actually pay for Amazon Prime itself, that means these games aren’t ‘free’ in the true sense of the word, but if you’re already a subscriber you can consider them a nice bonus.

What’s more, the total price of every game offered in a single month is usually far higher than the cost of Amazon Prime for an entire year, so the savings over the course of 12 months are still extremely high.

Prime Gaming’s ‘free’ games usually span a number of separate PC stores. When you redeem a game, you’ll either be given a redemption code or have to link your Amazon account to an account on the other store. There are instructions on how to do this, and it only has to be set up once.

Once this is set up, you’ll be able to claim your games. At the time of writing the games available are redeemed on the Epic Games Store, GOG, the Legacy Games store and Amazon’s own Amazon Games App.

All of the games you claim through Prime Gaming are yours to keep forever (well, as long as those digital stores last), even if you cancel your Prime membership.

This does mean that if you don’t have Prime but have acces to a free trial, you can technically subscribe to Prime with the free trial, claim all the Prime Gaming titles on offer for that month, then cancel your membership and keep the games.

The free Prime games currently available at the time of writing are:

• Aces of the Luftwaffe: Squadron (Amazon Games App)
• Bang Bang Racing (Amazon Games App)
• Bioshock 2 Remastered (GOG)
• The Bridge (Epic Games Store)
• Christmas Fables: The Magic Snowflake (Legacy Games)
• The College Atlas (Amazon Games App)
• The Coma: Recut (GOG)
• Coromon (GOG)
• Death’s Door (Epic Games Store)
• Eastern Exorcist (Epic Games Store)
• Elite Dangerous (Epic Games Store)
• The Gunk (GOG)
• Hero’s Hour (GOG)
• House of Golf 2 (Epic Games Store)
• Jurassic World Evolution (Epic Games Store)
• Monster Train (GOG)
• Moonscars (GOG)
• Ms Holmes – The Case of the Dancing Men (Amazon Games App)
• Mystery Case Files: The Dalimar Legacy (Amazon Games App)
• The Outer Worlds (GOG)
• Planet of Lana (GOG)
• Pumpkin Jack (GOG)
• ReDrawn: The Painted Tower (Amazon Games App)
• Shogun Showdown (GOG)
• Simulakros (Amazon Games App)
• Skydrift Infinity (Epic Games Store)
• Spirit Mancer (Amazon Games App)
• Stasis: Bone Totem (Epic Games Store)
• Through the Darkest of Times (Amazon Games App)
• The Town of Light (GOG)

Other free game deals

While it’s rare, every now and then a developer or publisher will list a paid game for free for some other reasons. Maybe it’s an introductory deal, maybe it’s to tie in with an upcoming release, or maybe they’re just feeling generous.

Any time such a miscellaneous freebie appears, we’ll list it here along with any known expiry dates.

• Steam game Jaded is currently free on Early Access, but is set for release on January 25. Once it’s out the price will be changed to $9.99. The developer has said if you ‘buy’ it for free just now (i.e. adding it to your Steam library), you won’t have to buy it once it’s released and will instead get the final version as a free update.
• The Sherman Hill DLC for Train Sim World 5 is currently free on Xbox. Train Sim World has a Free Starter Pack on Xbox Game Pass which comes with no routes, meaning if you claim the DLC (which usually costs $24.99  / £22.49) and have Game Pass you can essentially play the DLC pack for free. It’s not known if this was a pricing error – most of the game’s other DLC is currently discounted, but nothing else at 100% – but at the time of writing Xbox says the discount will end on January 27.

Nintendo Game Trials

On occasion, Nintendo will run a Game Trial event for one of the games on the Switch eShop.

While it may sound more like a playable demo, in reality a Game Trial lets you download a full game for a limited time.

This means you get to play the whole game, without restrictions or limitations, for a set time – usually a week – before the trial ends.

When it does, you no longer have access to the game and will have to actually buy it to keep playing.

Still, some of the games featured as Game Trials are short enough that you can get through them in a week, essentially meaning they’re free full games if you can find the time to finish them before the trial ends.

At the time of writing, the only Game Trial available on Switch is Iconoclasts, which is available to play in full from January 15 until January 21.

Free-to-play Games

Almost every digital game store on PC, mobile and console has a selection of free-to-play games.

Despite the name, it should be noted that these games are rarely entirely free. Usually access to the game will be free at first, but you’ll then be prompted to spend money on certain things while playing.

This could mean getting the first few levels of a game then paying for more, or paying to unlock new characters, modes or in-game currency.

Not all free-to-play games are created equal. Some, like Fortnite or Call of Duty : Warzone, offer a great deal of gameplay for free, with the paid elements offering things like weapons or cosmetic character skins.

Others are far more predatory and are difficult to play entirely for free without being at a serious disadvantage. It’s important to read up on each game beforehand and see how fair its free-to-play mechanics are, especially if a child is going to be playing.

Listing all the free-to-play games currently available is impossible because there are so many, but when you head to your digital store of choice and see a game marked as ‘free’, be sure to identify how that store differentiates between a genuinely free game and a free-to-play game (which will be almost all of them).

Generally, a digital store has to tell you if a free game contains in-app purchases. This helps you tell which games are truly free, and which have hidden costs.

PlayStation Plus

Free games on consoles are usually much rarer than on PC (free-to-play titles aside), so usually the ‘free’ games on offer are part of a subscription service offering other features.

On PS4 and PS5, this comes in the form of PS Plus, a subscription service with three separate tiers – Essential, Extra and Deluxe.

While Extra and Deluxe tiers offer a large, continually rotating catalogue of games, the Essential tier (the cheapest of the three) still offers a few games to claim every month.

When claimed, these games are added to your library, but they can only be played while you have an active PS Plus membership. They aren’t wiped if you cancel your membership, however: they’re simply deactivated. If you decide to rejoin PS Plus at some point in the future, the games you previously claimed will be playable again.

The PS Plus Essential games are rotated out on a monthly basis, so it’s worth claiming them all even if you don’t have time to play them right away, so they’re at least added to your library.

The current PS Plus Essential games are:

• Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League (PS5)
• Need for Speed Hot Pursuit Remastered (PS4)
• The Stanley Parable: Ultra Deluxe (PS4 / PS5)

These will be available to claim until February 3, at which point they’ll be replaced with new titles.

Of course, it should be stressed that these aren’t really ‘free’ games because you’re paying for a subscription, but it’s the closest PlayStation owners can get for non-free-to-play games.

Xbox Game Pass Core

Back in July 2013, Microsoft launched the Xbox Games With Gold service, where Xbox Live Gold subscribers could claim games every month (similar to the PS Plus games described above).

Sadly, Games With Gold ended in September 2023, and Xbox Live Gold was replaced with Xbox Game Pass Core.

Instead of a rotating selection of 2-3 games every month, Xbox Game Pass Core offers a selection of around 40 games, which is updated every now and then.

You can find the current list on the Xbox website, but obviously since these are a core part of the subscription they don’t really count as free games. We mention it here purely because Xbox currently doesn’t have a proper ‘free’ games service, and this is the closest thing to it.

If you pay a bit more per month you can gain access to Game Pass Standard, Game Pass PC or Game Pass Ultimate, which give you a larger library of games to choose from with new titles arriving every month. Again, this isn’t really free, it’s more like a Netflix situation. That said, here’s January’s Game Pass games confirmed so far:

• Road 96 – available now (Ultimate, Standard, PC)
• Lightyear Frontier – available now (Standard, Ultimate)
• My Time at Sandrock – available now (Standard, Ultimate)
• Robin Hood: Sherwood Builders – available now (Standard, Ultimate)
• Rolling Hills – available now (Standard, Ultimate)
• EA Sports UFC 5 – available now (Ultimate)
• Diablo (PC) – available now (PC, Ultimate)