Epic Game Store's Mega Sale is back, and 'GTA V' is free
The Epic Games Store has been counting down to the launch of an unnamed free title at 11AM ET today, and we learned last night that game would be Rockstar’s smash hit Grand Theft Auto V, thanks to an early tweet posted by Epic Games’ official Twitter account. However, since the clock passed 11AM ET, the Epic Games Store has been down entirely, presumably as people have been refreshing the site trying to claim the free game.
Epic acknowledged in an 11:05AM ET tweet and a 12:58PM ET tweet that the store has been experiencing issues:
Epic Games Store
✔@EpicGames
We are currently experiencing high traffic on the Epic Games Store.
We are aware that users may be encountering slow loading times, 500 errors, or launcher crashing at this time and we are actively working to scale. We’ll provide an update as soon as we can.
According to the leaked tweet, Grand Theft Auto V will be available as a free download through May 21st:
Wario64@Wario64Here’s the ad confirming that tomorrow’s free Epic Games Store title is Grand Theft Auto V https://twitter.com/EpicGames/status/1260242356076457985 …
Wario64@Wario64
It appears the heavy traffic to the Epic Games Store could also be affecting other Epic services as well, as an official Fortnite Twitter account said the game was “investigating issues” on PC and Mac:
Fortnite Status
✔@FortniteStatus
We’re investigating issues on PC and Mac that may impact Launcher logins and in-game purchases.
We’ll provide an update as we have more info.
Epic’s Battle Breakers mobile game is also experiencing issues, according to Epic’s status page for its services.
Once the Epic Games Store returns, if you want to claim GTA V, you should know that Epic Games is now requiring people to have two-factor authentication turned on to claim free games. If you need a guide on how to turn on two-factor authentication for your account, Epic has one you can follow here.
Epic has given away dozens of free titles since the Epic Games Store launched in December 2018, and the company said in January that it plans to continue to give away free games through 2020.
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