Epic's New Free Game Is GTA Meets The Witcher

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Ben Brosofsky has been writing for Screen Rant since 2022 and editing since 2024. He graduated from Vanderbilt University with a Bachelor's in Cinema & Media Arts. Writing serves as a much-needed distraction from tackling a backlog of Steam games that will never be surmounted.

It's easy to invoke Grand Theft Auto comparisons for virtually any open-world sandbox, but the newest giveaway on Epic Games has an unusually direct relation to GTA. In this case, however, the foundation of chaotic gameplay is paired with a medieval setting, so it could be just as appealing to fans of The Witcher, The Elder Scrolls, or Kingdom Come: Deliverance.

The Epic Games launcher revealed today that Rustler - Grand Theft Horse will be free from January 22 to January 29. True to its name, Rustler embraces a life of medieval crime, delivered in a top-down package similar to the first couple of Grand Theft Auto games. More broadly, January 22 marks the debut of Rustler on the service, following several years of Steam availability at a retail price of $24.99.

Epic's New Free Game Has Big GTA Vibes

Same Idea, New Setting

Despite the radical shift in setting, Rustler is still focused on maintaining a classic Rockstar-style sensibility. The description boasts about its surplus of "pop-culture references," even if it doesn't navigate them quite as deftly as GTA typically manages. For fans of Rockstar's other franchises, it's also hard to look at the protagonist without Bully's Jimmy Hopkins coming to mind.

Screen Rant's Rustler review is fairly critical of the game, but the complaints mostly come down to the litany of bugs and technical problems that plagued the game at launch. Years later, there shouldn't be as much of a problem. 2021 and 2022 Rustler updates focused on cleaning up its issues, leaving the game in a much better place than before.

Rustler Is A Lot Of Fun

It's A Winning Concept

Rustler hasn't set the world on fire to the same degree as the GTA series, but it's managed to earn a respectable fanbase of its own. Even after its launch issues, the Steam review consensus has settled at a solid 79% positive reception, edging out the divisive reviews for the Definitive Edition Trilogy remasters of GTA 3, Vice City, and San Andreas on Steam.

The biggest advantage, of course, is that it's about to be free, so there's no reason not to at least give Rustler a chance. Until then, Epic Games has both Styx: Master of Shadows and Styx: Shadows of Darkness available this week. These stealth titles are decidedly less chaotic than Rustler, but for the Witcher fans in the house, the dark fantasy setting could still be appealing. To scratch the Grand Theft Auto itch, though, you'll have to wait for Rustler.