Free weekend: Jump Space on Steam, Sea of Thieves on Xbox and PC

Three games opened up for free this weekend, and none of them asks you to start a trial subscription first. Steam is giving away Jump Space until Monday, a co-op game about the crew of one spaceship. Sea of Thieves is free on Xbox and PC with no Game Pass at all, while Hell Let Loose: Vietnam is only free if you already pay for the subscription. The deadlines differ, so here they are one by one.

Jump Space on Steam: the whole game until 21 September

Jump Space is four-player co-op about running a single ship: one of you steers, one patches the hull, and someone else is out in a spacewalk or down on the surface. It used to be called Jump Ship, it has been in Early Access since last September, and Keepsake Games marked the anniversary with a big update and then a free weekend.

The studio shipped four patches in the week before the giveaway, the last one on the morning of 18 September. The notes say why in plain words: a wave of new players is coming and nobody wants them landing on broken missions. One small fix from the same list is genuinely nice, your backpack contents now survive the trip out of the hangar, and loadouts stop vanishing on the way in.

Sea of Thieves is open to everyone, no subscription

This is the rare Free Play Days entry that skips Game Pass entirely. Microsoft spells it out: Sea of Thieves is free for all Xbox members from 17 to 20 September, on console and on PC, with no Ultimate, Premium or Essential membership required. The game is in Season 20 right now, and its headline feature is Custom Seas, a set of tools that lets players build their own modes and rules.

If it sticks, the 2026 Edition is $13.99 instead of $39.99 in the Microsoft Store. Achievements and progress from the free days carry over when you buy, that part is standard for Free Play Days.

Hell Let Loose: Vietnam needs the subscription

The second weekend title is free only for Game Pass Ultimate, Premium and Essential members, also from 17 to 20 September. It is a heavy war shooter with fifty players per side: tunnels, helicopters, patrol boats and a pace so slow that some people fall asleep and others never leave. The discounted price is $35.99 instead of $39.99, so buying now saves little, while trying it on the subscription costs nothing.

Check that split before you start the download: without a subscription Hell Let Loose: Vietnam simply shows you the purchase screen, and the evening goes somewhere else.

What to claim before it is gone

The Epic Games Store is handing out Mindcop and Shogun Showdown this week. You can claim them until 24 September, 15:00 UTC, and they stay in your library for good. Mechabellum is next in line. We keep the full list of giveaways with dates on a separate page that gets updated every Thursday.

Of the three, I would start with Jump Space: the barrier to entry is the lowest, four people can finish a run in one evening, and all you need is Steam. If you have nobody to play with tonight, our roundup of co-op games for an evening with friends is built exactly around titles that skip the long tutorial.