Overcooked is free for the week on the Epic Games Store

(Image credit: Team17)

Overcooked is free on the Epic Games Store for a week—and if that sounds familiar, it's because we said exactly the same thing on July 4, 2019, the first time that Overcooked went free on the Epic Games Store.

You might be wondering what happened to Ark: Survival Evolved, which a mid-May leak indicated would follow last week's freebie, Borderlands: The Handsome Collection. Going by a message posted yesterday by developer Studio Wildcard, It sounds like that will happen next week instead.

"Given the situation in the US, and the rest of the world right now, we will be rescheduling the ARK in-game celebration until Thursday, June 11," it wrote. "We understand that our community has much anticipated the Ark in-game party and the launch of Crystal Isles, and we're looking forward to sharing all we have prepared for you next week. We felt it would be inappropriate to celebrate milestones during the present time as there are bigger things afoot, and that outweighs any plans we otherwise had. We believe now is the time to be respectful and hear the voices of others."

There's no mention of the Epic Games Store giveaway in the announcement, but it's reasonable to assume that they'd coincide. 

And while it's not GTA5 or Civ 6, Overcooked is quite good: It's a local co-op game for up to four players about cooking and chaos that we said "is hands down one of the best couch party games ever made." It's also been close to a year since the first Overcooked giveaway, and the EGS audience has grown considerably since then, so there's very likely a large number of users who missed out on it the first time around. 

(In fact, I just checked and I missed it the first time around, so thanks, Epic.)

Overcooked is free for the taking until June 11, after which a new game—a mystery game!—will take its place.

Andy Chalk

Andy has been gaming on PCs from the very beginning, starting as a youngster with text adventures and primitive action games on a cassette-based TRS80. From there he graduated to the glory days of Sierra Online adventures and Microprose sims, ran a local BBS, learned how to build PCs, and developed a longstanding love of RPGs, immersive sims, and shooters. He began writing videogame news in 2007 for The Escapist and somehow managed to avoid getting fired until 2014, when he joined the storied ranks of PC Gamer. He covers all aspects of the industry, from new game announcements and patch notes to legal disputes, Twitch beefs, esports, and Henry Cavill. Lots of Henry Cavill.