Unlike the previous adventures of Sherlock Holmes, in Crimes & Punishments, you are not a mere spectator during the detective's investigation. It is now your turn to become Sherlock Holmes and lead your own investigations.

For the first time ever, Frogwares Studio will abandon their homemade graphics engine. The latest adventures of Sherlock Holmes will be developed on Epic’s Unreal Engine 3, allowing the series to jump far ahead of previous installments in graphical quality. Environments will be more realistic and finely detailed with dynamic lighting and shadows. Choosing this engine also lets the game benefit from many technologies like a powerful animation engine for smooth movement and animation transitions, real-time shaders and a particle system, and advanced post-processing effects.

Unlike the previous adventures of Sherlock Holmes, in Crimes and Punishments you will not be a mere spectator during the detective’s investigation. It is now your turn to truly become Sherlock Holmes and lead your own investigation-actually, your investigations, as 8 captivating cases await you! Murders, disappearances, spectacular thefts, and other investigations will bring you to the cutting edge of the detective genre and these cases will be the bread and butter of this game, written in the pure tradition of Conan Doyle’s novels. Each case offers real freedom to players, who will have to make important moral choices instead of simply enforcing justice by the book. All decisions have an influence in the game and affect your character’s reputation in addition to having realistic, sometimes unexpected, consequences. You will have to bear the weight of your choices, as Crimes and Punishments offers an exciting system of actions/consequences that forces players to think before acting by giving true depth to every decision they make.

In Crimes and Punishments, players will embody a Sherlock Holmes with a brand new look. Developers at Frogwares have abandoned the classic Sherlock Holmes inspired by the 60s Sherlock movies, replacing him with a more modern character perfectly matching the new artistic ambitions of the title

Once Sherlock Holmes: Crimes and Punishments and Close To The Sun, the current free games on the Epic Games Store, have run their course, it will be up to Just Cause 4 and Wheels of Aurelia, which will be gratis starting April 9 until April 16, 2020.

Just Cause 4

Set in the fictional South American world of Solis, Just Cause 4 takes the series' incredible destruction and physics to a new level with the introduction of tornadoes and other extreme weather events. Just Cause 4 has four distinct biomes: Alpine, Desert, Grasslands and Rainforest. With each biome offering its own individual, fully simulated weather event, players will have a distinct experience as they traverse this diverse world.

Rico Rodriguez returns in Just Cause 4 with his trademark parachute, wingsuit and grapple hook, now fully customizable and with enhanced functionality.

The new Apex engine delivers the most interactive, extreme weather simulations in a video game, complemented by incredible visuals, unparalleled physics and endless creative possibilities.

Wheels of Aurelia

A narrative road trip game set in the roaring Italian 70s.

Embark on an immersive road trip through the gritty western coast of Italy during the roaring 1970’s. Playing as Lella, a bold, spunky woman, experience the sights and sounds of a tumultuous time in Italy’s history while uncovering events from Lella’s past.

Wheels of Aurelia is rooted in culturally and historically researched events of the 1970’s, striving to challenge the stereotypical perception of Italy. The game showcases a time in Italy’s history never before explored in a videogame.

Close to the Sun is a story-driven horror game that takes place at the turn of the 20th century on a mysterious ship complex created by Nikola Tesla for the sake of science.

Close to the Sun casts players back to the height of Nikola Tesla’s career in the late 1890s, charging them with boarding a mysterious ship complex created by the man himself to bring the greatest minds of the world together in an alternative version of history.

Though his various scientific breakthroughs have, even at this early stage, had a major impact on the rest of the world, it quickly becomes apparent that something, somewhere on this ship has gone disastrously wrong, and history is not playing out as it should.

Players take on the role of Rose, a young journalist searching for her sister in this first-person horror adventure, with Close to the Sun’s water-laden world offering no way of escape and no easy answers to the riddles aplenty therein.

Close to the Sun’s visuals are heavily inspired by Art Deco, Art Nouveau and Steampunk, with players charged with both exploring and surviving Tesla’s dystopia domain in first-person as they venture towards a promised salvation. What lies in wait for those who manage to dance away from death within a world seemingly intent on bringing about their demise?

Key Features:

• First-person horror adventure where survival is the order of the day
• Problem solving in order to progress the story: Just what happened on board Tesla’s ship?
• Danger aplenty as Rose pieces together just what killed most on board despite having no real means to defend herself
• Teamwork with a yet-to-be-revealed ally who helps Rose navigate her way through the ship’s Art Deco halls
• Nerve inducing exploration - defenseless and weaponless, the keys to Rose’s survival are running, hiding, and quick thinking