System Shock 2: 25th Anniversary Remaster is free on the Epic Games Store right now. Nightdive Studios' update of the 1999 FPS/RPG normally lists at $29.99 there, and anyone who claims it before October 8 at 15:00 UTC (11am Eastern) keeps it for good. LINE Games' mystery adventure Buried Stars is free in the same window, and Epic has already named the two games that replace them next week.
What you get
The 25th Anniversary Remaster is Nightdive's modernised version of the game Irrational Games and Looking Glass Studios released in 1999. It's set in 2114. You wake from cryo-sleep aboard the faster-than-light starship Von Braun with no memory, and the ship has already gone wrong: hybrid mutants and security robots patrol the decks, and the rogue AI SHODAN, the face on the key art, wants humanity gone. You go deck by deck, piecing together what happened to the crew from what they left behind.
Under the original's systems-heavy design, the remaster adds what you'd expect from a modern PC release. Nightdive's feature list includes cross-play co-op multiplayer, mod support, performance up to 144fps, ultrawide support, reworked character and weapon models and animations, better controller support, and a set of quality-of-life fixes. There are also 50 achievements. The character-building choice from the original is still there at the start: you sign up with the O.S.A., the Marines or the Navy, and each one pushes your build in a different direction, from psionics to firearms to hacking and repair.
How long the offer runs
Epic's store schedule lists the System Shock 2 and Buried Stars giveaways as running from October 1 at 15:00 UTC to October 8 at 15:00 UTC. As with every Epic weekly freebie, you need to add the game to your library during that window. You don't have to install or play it then; once it's claimed, it stays on your account after the promotion ends.
The remaster first released on PC on June 26, 2025, so this is not a launch-week giveaway. It's still one of the more substantial free games Epic has offered this year: a full remaster of a genre-defining immersive sim from an established remaster studio, given away well over a year after release instead of years later.
Buried Stars is free alongside it
The second game this week is Buried Stars from LINE Games, which lists at $39.99 on Epic. It's a mystery adventure set around a survival audition show that goes wrong. The contestants end up trapped, and while they wait for rescue they talk to each other and to the outside world through social media. It's a very different game from System Shock 2, but if you'd rather spend your free week reading than shooting, it's the one to grab.
Next week: Out of Sight and TerraScape
When this week's offer ends on October 8, Epic's schedule swaps in two more games, free until October 15 at 15:00 UTC:
- Out of Sight (The Gang, $14.99 list): a horror puzzle adventure about Sophie, a blind girl trying to escape a haunted mansion. You sneak, hide and solve puzzles to get her past the captors hunting her through the house.
- TerraScape (Bitfall Studios, $16.99 list): a medieval city-building puzzler where you place buildings on floating islands, building out kingdoms one placement at a time.
Neither is claimable yet. Epic's store schedule already lists both for October 8.
Is it worth claiming?
Yes, even if you're not sure you'll get to it soon. Claiming costs nothing and the game stays yours. For anyone who never played System Shock 2, it is one of the foundation stones of the immersive sim: you can draw a straight line from it to BioShock, Prey and plenty of the systemic shooters that came after. Nightdive's version is the easiest way to play it today without fighting old fan patches. If you already own the original from another store, the free remaster is still a direct upgrade, with co-op and modern display support included.
The deal is on the Epic Games Store for PC only. You'll need an Epic account and the Epic Games Launcher to download the game once it's claimed.
