Epic kicks off 2026 with a strategy epic and a spacefaring PvPvE shooter. Here’s what to expect from Total War: Three Kingdoms and Wildgate, how long you have to claim them, and which game fits your hardware, schedule, and genre tastes.
Epic Games Store is starting 2026 by pairing one of the most acclaimed historical strategy games on PC with a newer spacefaring shooter. Total War: Three Kingdoms and Wildgate are both free to claim on EGS right now and yours to keep forever once they are in your library.
You have until January 8, 2026, at 10:00 AM (Epic’s store page time, roughly 8:00 AM PT / 11:00 AM ET / 16:00 GMT) to hit the Claim button. After that, both games go back to their usual price.
Total War: Three Kingdoms – Grand Strategy In Ancient China
Total War: Three Kingdoms is Creative Assembly’s 2019 entry in the long running Total War series, focused on the collapse of the Han dynasty and the rise of the Three Kingdoms era. It blends turn based empire management on a campaign map with large real time battles where thousands of soldiers clash at once.
On the campaign side you are juggling food, public order, taxation, and diplomacy as warlords vie for control of China. Characters matter more than usual for the series, with legendary generals and advisers building relationships, rivalries, and personal arcs that affect both politics and performance on the battlefield. Once armies collide, you zoom into sprawling clashes where formations, terrain, morale, and commander duels decide whether your meticulously built kingdom expands or crumbles.
Three Kingdoms is at its best if you want a long form, slow burn strategy experience. A single campaign can easily run dozens of hours and rewards careful planning and experimentation with different factions and alliances rather than short drop in sessions.
Who should claim Total War: Three Kingdoms?
If you enjoy methodical strategy and don’t mind sinking real time into long campaigns, you should absolutely grab it while it is free. This is a PC focused game built around mouse and keyboard controls and deep menus, so it fits players who like learning systems and replaying campaigns with different approaches.
From a hardware angle, Three Kingdoms is relatively forgiving in 2026 terms. It originally launched in 2019 and was built for mid range gaming PCs of that era, so a modern budget rig or slightly older desktop should still be fine at 1080p with adjusted settings. Laptops with integrated graphics may need lower presets and capped frame rates in large battles, but the campaign layer itself is not particularly demanding.
If your gaming time comes in long weekend marathons or you like slowly advancing a save file over weeks, Three Kingdoms is the better match. If you prefer quick rounds you can finish in 20 minutes, it is more of a “claim it for later” title than something you will instantly binge.
Wildgate – Spacefaring PvPvE With Tactical Ship Combat
Wildgate goes in the opposite direction, built around shorter multiplayer matches and moment to moment decision making. It is a PvPvE multiplayer shooter set in a sci fi universe where crews command ships through dangerous sectors, fighting both AI controlled threats and other players while trying to escape with valuable loot.
Rounds typically have you launching from a hub, piloting or crewing a ship, boarding derelicts and enemy vessels, and scrambling to extract through the titular gates before time or health runs out. The pacing mixes tense downtime as you track other ships on scanners with sudden close quarters firefights once boarding actions begin.
If Three Kingdoms is about long term empire building, Wildgate is about repeated high risk runs. Gear and ship upgrades give you progression, but each match stands alone as a self contained story of whether your crew makes it home or dies in a messy ambush.
Who should claim Wildgate?
Wildgate is an easy recommendation for players who like competitive or co op shooters and have friends to squad up with. The PvPvE structure rewards voice communication, quick callouts, and improvised tactics when another crew shows up at the worst possible moment.
Hardware expectations are steeper than for Three Kingdoms. Wildgate targets modern PCs with a 64 bit OS, a reasonably recent quad core CPU, and at least a mid range GPU such as a GTX 1050 Ti or better according to current spec roundups and store listings. Older or low power laptops may run into performance issues when matches get busy, especially at higher resolutions.
In terms of time commitment, Wildgate suits players with shorter play windows. A single run is a contained session you can finish in a lunch break or evening, and it is easy to jump in for one or two games without committing to a long campaign. The flip side is that you need a stable connection and a bit of tolerance for the usual multiplayer volatility, from tough matchmaking nights to teammates who drop mid match.
Which free Epic game should you prioritize?
Both games are permanently yours if you claim them before January 8, so there is little reason not to grab both. If you want to prioritize downloads or decide what to actually play this week, use three quick filters.
If your hardware is older or closer to the minimum bar, Three Kingdoms is the safer first install. It scales down better and offers plenty of value even at modest settings. Wildgate can work on mid range hardware, but the experience is smoother and more enjoyable on stronger CPUs and GPUs that handle busy firefights without hitching.
If your schedule is packed and gaming time comes in short bursts, Wildgate fits better. You can hop into a quick session, try a few runs, and log out feeling like you accomplished something. Three Kingdoms is a better fit when you can sit down for longer stretches and slowly push a campaign forward.
Finally, let genre taste lead. Fans of tactics, history, and number crunching should prioritize Three Kingdoms and consider it a must claim even if they only plan to get to it later in the year. Shooter and extraction fans who love tense, unpredictable PvPvE will get more out of Wildgate right away, especially if they can bring a premade squad.
Whatever camp you fall into, the important bit is timing. Open the Epic Games Store, add both Total War: Three Kingdoms and Wildgate to your account before January 8, and you can experiment at your own pace long after the promotion ends.