Epic Games Store | Image credit: Epic Games
Epic revealed at the Unreal Fest event in Seattle that it plans to launch a free games program for its mobile store. Currently, Epic Games has a similar program available for PC gamers, which typically offers two games for free every week through the Epic Games Store.Epic Games Store general manager Steve Allison announced that up to 50 third-party titles might be launched on its mobile store by Q4 (via Mobilegamer.biz). The official also confirmed that the company’s free games program will be ported to the mobile store too, which means mobile gamers will be offered a certain number of titles for free every week.
In the holiday season we’ll open up with our first third party applications. We probably expect somewhere between 10 and 50 of them to be ready, and the biggest thing is just going to be implementing a payment solution, so that may push some of these out into the subsequent months.
One of the first third-party mobile games that will be available via the Epic Games Store is Ark: Ultimate Mobile Edition. The game is expected to be released in Q4 2024.
Allison said that Epic will provide developers with special tools so that they can self-publish their mobile games without having to interact with Epic Games at all (unless they need help).
Epic’s official also confirmed that the company is already working to add social and party features to its mobile store, including cross-platform play and in-game chat, which are expected to be released sometime later this year.
ARK: Ultimate Mobile Edition | Image credit: Epic Games
If you’re using an Android device, the Epic Games Store for mobile devices is available worldwide, but for iOS users, this is only available in the European Union, at least for the time being.
In related news, Epic Games recently announced it has sued both Google and Samsung over sideloading issues. As some of you probably know already, Samsung’s One UI comes with an Auto-Blocker feature since 2023.
The Auto-Blocker prevents users from installing apps unless they come directly from the Google Play Store and Samsung Galaxy Store. Samsung added this feature as an extra layer of security, but Epic Games decided to sue the South Korean company because the feature is enabled by default.
To make things worse, disabling Auto-Blocker involves a complex process that requires 21 steps, at least according to Epic Games. We’ll see how this goes for the involved parties, but having the freedom to install apps from more stores can only be useful for the end user.