The Epic Games Store allows players to pick up one to three games completely free of charge every Thursday. They can be anything from indie games to big AAA titles. Typically, Epic announces free games a week in advance, but sometimes they decide to surprise players with the next title.
This is the case of the free game of Epic Games Store for May 26. However, as Epic has released an image as a hint to further discussion and speculation, players aren’t entirely in the dark. Users at r/EpicGamesPC have done both and have come up with several compelling arguments as to what the free-to-play mystery game could be.
The teaser image looks like a paper card with the date 5/26/2022 on it. The image shows a man wearing sunglasses lighting his cigarette with a $100 bill. Reddit user Cursed_Mortal determined that Epic Games he based the image on a scene from the 1986 Hong Kong action film A Better Tomorrow. The protagonist of the film is a member of the Triad who, after his fall from grace, tries to reconcile with his younger brother, who is a police officer.
Since the movie is about mobsters in Hong Kong, some were quick to guess that the open-world action game Sleeping Dogs was the obvious answer. However, the plots of the game and the movie are not that similar, leading some Reddit users to suggest that one of the Yakuza games might be a better fit.
Others suggested 2007’s Stranglehold, which also focuses on criminal syndicates in Hong Kong. The actor in the teaser image, Chow Yun-fat, even voiced the protagonist of the 2007 game. Although Sleeping Dogs seems to be the favorite, there are storylines for both games.
Sleeping Dogs, Yakuza Y stranglehold are not the only possibilities. Reddit user Responsible-River653 presented various arguments to explain why the mystery game could be Max Payne 3. The first is that both A Better Tomorrow and the Max Payne series are known in China as True Color of a Hero.
Also, the Chinese characters at the bottom of the card translate to “They are burning too much”, referring to money. The post suggests that this refers to Max Payne 3’s $105 million budget. Responsible-River653 goes on to list other possible evidence. Among them, the remake of Max Payne and Max Payne 2 and a post from the Epic account on Chinese social networks.
Another Reddit post suggests the mystery game is 2018’s indie metroidvania, Dead Cells. Although the cartoon bill does not show any actual writing, there are dots that correspond to the text on an authentic $100 bill. The only points missing are those of the “DC” of Washington DC, which has burned. The poster states that the missing “DC” stands for “Dead Cells”.