I have a boring ritual. Every few weeks, I make sure to check out the Prime Gaming Rewards page to see what free games are available. Most of the time it’s nothing too exciting, maybe a few good, smaller games along with some totally forgettable things I’ll never play. But October is different. This time Amazon is offering some big, relatively recent games along with the usual assortment of smaller titles.
This month’s free games include the fantastic space combat sim Star Wars: Squadrons, the hard but equally great shooter Ghostrunner, and the older, yet still scary-good Alien: Isolation. Here’s the full list:
- Song of Horror Complete Edition
- Red Wings: Aces of the Sky
- Wallace & Gromit’s Grand Adventures
- Blue Fire
- Tiny Robots Recharged
- Whiskey & Zombies: The Great Southern Zombie Escape
- Secret Files 3
- Star Wars: Squadrons
- Alien: Isolation
- Ghostrunner
The free games and other video game goodies offered up by Bezos’ mega-company aren’t the reason I have an Amazon Prime subscription, so I don’t really expect much whenever I check. But now, perhaps for the first time ever, I’m legitimately excited to grab these games come October. (Which starts…tomorrow. Wow, this year is going very quickly.)
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It’s wild how solid this month’s offerings are. I enjoyed Squadrons a lot when it came out just last year. It finds a perfect balance between the space sims of old and more casual space shooters. Alien: Isolation is a perfectly creepy game to play to celebrate the best month of the year, October, which includes the best holiday, Halloween. And Ghostrunner is a game Kotaku’s own Ari Notis described as one of 2020’s “strongest games” thanks in large part to its slick visuals and tight, responsive controls.
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Compare these games to this October’s PlayStation Plus offerings, which include the older Mortal Kombat X, a game that PS5 owners can get for free already, and…a golf game. Nothing against golf or its fans, but that’s a fairly niche and boring choice that I assume most PlayStation fans won’t touch.
Of course, while October’s Prime games are filled with some genuine bangers, consistency is key. Will November and December have similarly great games for the taking? I hope so. But considering that in the past, my Prime account has earned me such amazing titles as that new Shaq-Fu and a game based on Netflix’s Narcos, I’m not holding my breath for future months to match October. Still, even if this does end up being a fluke, it’s a nice treat for Prime subscribers.