Last call

You only have a few days to get the most addictive shooter games ever for free

Two games for the price of zero.

Hand in gloves holding a reloading handgun. First person view hand in black leather gloves holding a...
Shutterstock

The Epic Games store has given PC gamers free access to big-name titles like Grand Theft Auto 5 and Sid Meier’s Civilization VI in recent weeks. Now, the site is offering two games from one of the most distinctive and addictive first-person shooter franchises in gaming history.

Borderlands: The Handsome Collection is free for PC on the Epic Game Store until June 6 at 11 a.m. Eastern.

Anyone with an existing account (which is also free) can download the bundle that comes with Borderlands 2 and Borderlands The Pre-Sequel and keep both digital copies of the looter-shooter titles even after this offer expires. Don’t wait too long though, just like Sony’s PlayStation Plus subscription service, if you don’t redeem Borderlands: The Handsome Collection before June 4, it’ll cost you the full price for each game if you try to claim it after that deadline.

Borderlands 2 was released in 2012 and its prequel, Borderlands: The Pre-Sequel, was released two years later. Both games are masterclass examples of the looter-shooter genre where one-to-four players hunt for progressively stronger gear to help them defeat increasingly more powerful enemies and bosses throughout the campaign and into the endgame. Think World of Warcraft meets a Mad Max-style FPS.

Lilith is another one of the playable characters in 'Borderlands 2.' She has an arsenal of supernatural powers that make her an absolute beast on the battlefield.

Gearbox Software / 2K Games

Both games let players choose between four unique character classes with highly varying skillsets. To top it off, each class has three talent trees that players can unlock as they fight through to campaign to further customize how they play each class. All of the different skill builds can completely change how a certain character is played, for example, Zer0 is a robotic hitman in Borderlands 2 that can be played as a sniper or a close-quarters assassin.

A wide array of skills are complemented by an innumerable amount of unique guns that players have a chance of looting during any of their enemy encounters. Weapons vary in rarity and each have their own special perks, like Logan’s Gun belches flames and the Infinity Gun doesn’t consume any ammo. But finding the most sought-after weapons is all about getting lucky. In that sense, the Borderlands games do draw comparisons to Destiny and The Division.

The more people you play with, the harder the enemies get and the higher chance they’ll have of dropping Legendary items. This makes Borderlands: The Handsome Collection incredibly replayable when gamers never know when they could luck out and finally loot that ultra-powerful sniper rifle they’ve been searching for.

All the loot will have you coming back for more.

Gearbox Software / 2K Games

This highly addictive core gameplay loop is packaged with an eye-popping comic book art style and non-stop toilet humor from the Borderlands’ main characters and NPCs, so there's nothing quite like it out there.

Borderlands: The Handsome Collection can essentially be described as video game junk food. Neither game will blow your mind considering the rather shallow plots, but the gameplay and items will keep you coming back session after session, like a batch of fresh french fries. Eat too many, and you just might question your life choices. But is there anything better in those first few bites.

Borderlands: The Handsome Collection is free for PC on the Epic Game Store until June 4 at 11 a.m. Eastern.

Related Tags