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Acclaimed tropical island mystery Call of the Sea is next week's free Epic Store game

Rise of Industry free until then.

Here's a little something for purveyors of exquisite things at reasonable prices: Call of the Sea, developer Out of the Blue's acclaimed Lovecraft-hued tropical island mystery adventure, is free next week on the Epic Games Store.

Call of the Sea - which originally released toward the tail-end of 2020 - whisks players back to 1934, as protagonist Norah Everhart (voiced by Firewatch and The Walking Dead: Season One's Cissy Jones) investigates a beautiful South Pacific island in search of her missing husband.

What follows is a captivating, often ingenious blend of story, exploration, and puzzling that successfully that manages to hits some powerful emotional beats, even as it tips into cosmic weirdness. Eurogamer's Robert Purchese described Call of the Sea as a "dazzlingly different debut with a haunting sense of place and adventure" in his Recommended review.

Cover image for YouTube videoCall of the Sea - Launch Trailer - AVAILABLE NOW on PC and Xbox Game Pass
Call of the Sea - Launch Trailer.

If that's got you sufficiently intrigued, Call of the Sea will be free to add to your Epic Games Store library between 9th and 16th March, replacing entertaining logistics management sim Rise of Industry, which is free until then.

Call of the Sea developer Out of the Blue is currently working on its second title, American Arcadia - a visually striking mix of 2.5D side-scrolling platformer and fully 3D first-person game, set in a retro-futuristic metropolis where the citizens don't know they're contestants on the planet's most watched reality show.