The Epic Games Store's Star Wars Battlefront 2 giveaway is over, but the sprawling space opera action continues today with Galactic Civilizations 3 (opens in new tab), Stardock's aged but excellent interstellar 4X strategy game.
Galciv 3, as it's commonly known, has been around since 2015, when we hit it with an 87/100 review score (opens in new tab).
"Stardock’s series is pretty much unique in the 4X genre—a space conquest game that sits alongside Master of Orion instead of simply in its shadow," we said at the time. "It’s not just a game of rules and strategy, but of quirky charm—witty descriptions to take the harsh edge off the technologies, an attempt to make the aliens you encounter feel like they have personalities instead of simply being a rendered face on some stats, and enough wrapping to feel like there are could actually be people/aliens somewhere behind your comma-filled population figures."
We also noted that Galciv 3 "is intended to have a long life," with plenty of room for future expansions and mods, and this definitely turned out to be the case: It's not quite a Paradox grand strategy game, but there's a pile of expansions and add-ons (opens in new tab) available for it, which is great if you get drawn in and want even more.
Galactic Civilizations 3 is free on the Epic Games Store until January 28. After that, it's time for Dandara: Trials of Fear editions, "a prickly 2D Metroidvania (opens in new tab) with a curious twist." For more free games (because we all want more free games), don't miss our lists of best free PC games, best free games on Steam, best browser games, and all the free games you can grab right now (opens in new tab).
