Flotsam is free on Epic Games Store, letting you build a town at sea

Epic Games Store has moved on from its Halloween giveaways, replacing last week's Sorry We're Closed promotion with a rather different kind of free game. This week's offer is Flotsam, a survival city-builder from Pajama Llama Games that challenges players to build a thriving settlement on a flooded version of Earth. As always, anyone who claims it before the promotion ends can keep it in their library permanently.

Rather than constructing a traditional city on solid ground, Flotsam puts you in charge of a group of survivors living aboard a floating settlement. With most of the world submerged, your community must rely on whatever materials it can recover from the water. Plastic, driftwood, scrap metal, and other discarded objects become essential building supplies, allowing you to gradually expand your makeshift home with new houses, walkways, workshops, and machinery.

There's more to survival than simply collecting enough junk to build a bigger town, though. You'll need to provide food and clean water for your residents, manage available resources, and send your settlement sailing between different locations. Exploring the flooded world also gives you opportunities to find additional supplies and recruit new survivors.

Each drifter has their own background, while specialist recruits can unlock new buildings, quests, and discoveries. The developer also encourages players to turn collected waste into more efficient systems, gradually transforming a collection of floating debris into a sustainable community. It's a fairly unusual setting for a city-builder, but one that gives the game a distinctive post-apocalyptic charm.

Epic's latest promotion includes another bonus for players of Idle Champions of the Forgotten Realms. The free-to-play strategy management game is receiving a goodie pack advertised as being worth more than $100, containing character unlocks, cosmetic items, and other extras. To claim it, simply launch the game through the Epic Games Store client and log in before November 12.

Flotsam is available to claim for free until November 12. Once the current giveaway expires, Epic will introduce another pair of freebies on the same day, headlined by Knightica, a roguelike autobattler. If you enjoy picking up free PC games, be sure to visit our free games page, and keep an eye on our upcoming releases and exclusive offers for the latest opportunities to grow your library.