If you’re looking for an exploration game that’s less about clearing millions of icons, and more about finding your own path through a world filled with mysteries, Sable is the game for you. Shedworks’ sci-fi coming of age story encourages you to take the world at your own pace, picking a direction and enjoying what happens along the way. It’s a less stressful, more zen approach to open world design, and right now you don’t even have to worry about how much it costs, as Sable is free to keep on the Epic Store until July 3.
What mainly impressed me about Sable when it launched was its stunning art-style. Sable was the first game to adapt the unmistakable aesthetic of Jean “Moebius” Giraud into a 3D world, a style that has since been adopted by other games like the city-builder Synergy and the upcoming hack ‘n’ slash XTAL. But Sable remains the best example of it for my money (not that money is a concern in this instance). You can tell Shedworks agonised over every shade, every angle, every glorious sunset transition.
As for what you do in Sable, the answer really is whatever you want. There are quests and missions dotted across the world, ranging from rescuing wayward climbers to light detective work. You can accept these if you crave more structure, or you can simply float around on your customisable hoverbike, delving into the vast shipwrecks scattered across the game’s painterly desert, exploring ancient ruins, or ascending its looming peaks.
It was how Shedworks supported this wanderlust that so appealed to Nat Clayton in her Sable review. “Sable is, ultimately, a game about needing space to figure yourself out. Sable is still a child, and the story sets no stakes above her figuring out who she wants to be,” she wrote back in 2021. ” There are ruins to explore, people to meet, errands to run and all sorts of nick-nacks to collect. But if you just want to relax to some Japanese Breakfast melodies while riding a hoverbike across a pastel desert, that’s quite alright too.”
This isn’t the first time Sable has gone gratis on Tim Sweeney’s gigantic Fortnite gift shop. Epic also gave Sable away back in 2022, about a year after its launch. I was slightly surprised to learn just how long Sable has been out, given there was a time it felt like it might never release at all. In any case, this gives you an idea of how infrequently these specific freebies come around, so if you missed Sable’s giveaway last time, you might want to jump on this one pronto.
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