Alba: A Wildlife Adventure Is Free On Epic

Monday, the latest hero coming to Overwatch 2 with season 2 was revealed. Tuesday, more details came out on the winter updates for Halo Infinite, and I swore at some furniture when redoing my office. Wednesday, I swore at some furniture again because you never get these things just quite right the first time, and Wednesday’s news was drier than William Griffith Wilson (Bill W) walking the Sahara. Thursday, I needed someone from Louisiana to help me get to Houston town, and someone is nostalgic for SNES-era JRPGs, as Chained Echoes got a release date.

Moving on to this week’s free games on the Epic Games Store, and for once, it is two that I am actually up for. We’ll start with the stealth release that we’ve seen before on Epic, Mimimi Games’ Shadow Tactics: Blades of the Shogun. A redux of the old stealth-action style from titles such as Desperados and Commandos, this beautiful take is something I’ve had a little bit of experience with before and though it is meant to be difficult and thus I have left it after that short frustrating time, the Edo period setting makes Shadow Tactics: Blades of the Shogun so memorable. Colorful, cartoonish enough, and as all stealth games should be, a fine puzzle game that you’ll probably have to save scum.

Moving to another colorful title, it is Ustwo Games’ Alba: A Wildlife Adventure, a story of a child sent to live with her grandparents on a Mediterranean island where she becomes David Attenborough. Depending on what translation you use, the name Alba can mean a few things such as Latin where it means White or White Land, Spanish where it means sunrise or dawn, and Gaelic which took the Latin meaning and made White Land into Scotland (Caledonia for the Romans among you). I know that has nothing to do with taking pictures of and saving colorful animals, but the point of Alba is to learn a little and explore. Well, now you know the etymology of not only what a gay wizard is called but also what Great Britain as a whole was once called.

All this week, you can pick up Shadow Tactics: Blades of the Shogun and Alba: A Wildlife Adventure on the Epic Games Store for free until the 17th of November. Moving on to next week and we’ll talk about something Alexx reviewed (twice) when I have to find something nice to say about a Gameboy Advance-style JRPG in Dark Deity. I don’t think I’ll find anything nice to say about something with so many load times. The only Ash I tend to like is often asked what she’s playing, so I doubt I’ll have anything nice to say about Ash Williams either when next week sees Evil Dead: The Game appears alongside the deliberately dated JRPG wannabe.