Key Highlights:
- Sker Ritual and Home will be free to claim on the Epic Games Store from 22 to 29 October 2026.
- UK players can claim both games from 4pm BST on Thursday, with the giveaway ending at 3pm GMT the following Thursday.
- The offer includes a four-player co-op survival shooter and a choice-driven horror mystery originally released in 2012.
Two horror games are joining the Epic Games Store free games lineup on Thursday, 22 October, with Sker Ritual and Home: A Unique Horror Adventure confirmed as the final giveaways before Halloween week.
Both Windows PC games will be free to claim and keep permanently until 29 October. The promotion begins at 4pm BST on 22 October and finishes at 3pm GMT on 29 October. The difference is due to UK clocks going back on Sunday, 25 October.
Until the new giveaway begins, players can still claim Bad Cheese, a disturbing horror adventure inspired by early cartoon animation, and Agent A: A Puzzle in Disguise, a spy-themed puzzle game. Both are available until the Thursday changeover.
The larger of the upcoming freebies is Sker Ritual, Wales Interactive’s round-based survival shooter released in April 2024. A spin-off of Maid of Sker, it replaces traditional survival horror with relentless waves of enemies known as the Quiet Ones, supporting solo play or online co-op for up to four players.
There is more to its combat than simply surviving increasingly difficult rounds. Enemy hordes scale according to the number of players, while Miracle powers offer randomly selected upgrades affecting shooting, melee attacks, grenades and healing. Players can also discover hidden objectives, improve steampunk weapons and unlock rewards through the game’s Dread Levels and Sker Pass systems.
The free offer covers the base game, with separately sold cosmetic DLC remaining outside the giveaway. Epic lists 15GB of available storage and 8GB of RAM among its PC requirements.
Home: A Unique Horror Adventure takes a considerably different approach. Originally released in June 2012, Benjamin Rivers’ pixel-art mystery follows a man who awakens in an unfamiliar house and gradually uncovers evidence surrounding a possible murder.
Rather than simply discovering a predetermined explanation, players influence how the mystery unfolds through their choices, with multiple paths and endings. The game also includes Postmortem Mode, a developer diary and gallery explaining how the adventure was created.
There is another interesting detail: although Home is more than 14 years old, its Epic Games Store listing gives 22 October 2026 as its storefront availability date, meaning the giveaway coincides with its arrival on Epic. Its minimum storage requirement is just 300MB.
What interests me most about this pairing is how differently the games approach horror. Sker Ritual turns survival into a repeatable combat challenge with friends, while Home builds its tension around uncertainty, interpretation and the consequences of individual decisions.
Epic has previously offered everything from the card-based adventure Foretales in July 2026 to Marvel’s Guardians of the Galaxy in January 2024, but this latest promotion brings two very different horror experiences together.
Unlike the recent ARC Raiders four-day free weekend, these are not temporary trials. Players only need a free Epic account to redeem the titles during the promotional window.
Both games will become claimable through the Epic Games Store free games page on 22 October. There is no requirement to install either game before the offer expires, provided the claim is completed in time.
