You can claim a hit indie game for free right now across PlayStation, Xbox, and Steam, and you’ll especially love it if you’re a Stardew Valley.
All of a sudden, there is a surprising abundance of horror farming video games, which has somehow become its own sub-genre. Between Neverway, Grave Seasons, and the recently announced Crop, they’re sprouting up everywhere… and now you can play one of the first such games for free, to see what it’s all about.
Developed by Lazy Bear Games, Graveyard Keeper is a medieval graveyard management sim inspired by the likes of Stardew Valley and Harvest Moon. You have to gather resources and craft items to turn your graveyard into a sustainable business, with some dungeon crawler elements thrown in for good measure.
Graveyard Keeper launched in 2018 and has garnered a ‘Very Positive’ rating on Steam, based on over 16,000 reviews, and if you want to try it yourself, you can get it for free right now.
The game is available to download for free and keep across PlayStation 4, Xbox, and PC via Steam until Monday, April 13 at 6pm. This is just the base version of the game, and not Graveyard Keeper: Last Journey Edition which includes additional DLC.
So why is it free right now? Lazy Bear Games recently announced a sequel, Graveyard Keeper 2, at the Triple-i Initiative Showcase. The sequel appears to build on the same foundations, albeit this time within a zombie-infested town.
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Graveyard Keeper 2 also boasts some real-time strategy elements, as you fortify your town against the undead and lead your own zombie army into battle. Naturally, with the sequel’s announcement, the devs want more people to try out the original.
A release date for the sequel hasn’t been announced so it might be a while off yet, but you can currently wishlist it on Steam.
If you’re all about agricultural creeps, Crop was also announced at the Triple-i Initiative Showcase. Developed by Carbonara Games, this is described as an investigative thriller combined with a high-stakes farming, where you must feed a village on the brink of starvation.
Crop doesn’t have a release date yet but it’s got a surprisingly chilling trailer, featuring slaughtered pigs and a nod to Alfred Hitchcock’s Psycho.
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