Epic Games’ next move might be their ballsiest one yet, as the company targets the legion of Total War fans who flock to digital stores the moment a new entry in that series is released for sale. SEGA and Creative Assembly’s next title, A Total War Saga: Troy, will be exclusive to the Epic Games Store for the first year of its life once it launches on August 13…and also free to own for the first 24 hours after launch.

We’ve seen the likes of Borderlands: The Handsome Collection and Into the Breach offered as freebies with which to entice consumers towards the Epic Games Store lifestyle, and it looks like there’s no current end to this delicious bait being thrown into the gaming waters currently. Those free games have been fantastic marketing for the EGS, and according to Epic CEO Tim Sweeney, they’ve also been fantastic for driving home awareness of other games and increasing sales across long after the free giveaway promotion has ended.

The biggest spanner ever thrown into Valve’s dominance of the PC gaming market, Epic’s arrival has been both hailed as the best thing ever and criticised for a variety of reasons along the way. Has it been a profitable move for Epic so far then? Hell yeah.

Borderlands 3 is out, and while the game has a myriad of problems including sometimes iffy performance on PC and consoles (don’t even try playing split-screen yet), it’s undeniably fun. There are great quality of life improvements, the gunplay is frankly phenomenal and the game has more already outdated memes and pop culture references stuffed into it than 9gag.