This weekend s&box is free on Steam. It's the game creation platform from Facepunch, the studio behind Garry's Mod and Rust, and access closes on Monday, October 5 at 17:00 UTC (10am Pacific, 6pm in London). Over on Xbox, Ubisoft has put up five games at once, Far Cry 6 and Assassin's Creed Odyssey among them, with no Game Pass needed. That window is shorter though: it runs out on Sunday, October 4.
s&box on Steam: the whole platform until October 5, 17:00 UTC
s&box isn't one game. It's a storefront of hundreds of small games built by players on Source 2, plus the editor to make your own. Think Garry's Mod with a proper engine underneath. Free access started on Friday, October 2 at 17:00 UTC and covers everything, other people's games and the tools alike. There's no cut-down trial here.
Facepunch has its own reason for the timing: the final of its third Game Jam. Players made more than 400 games in three weeks, two reached the final, and the winner is picked by public vote today, Saturday, October 3. The prize pool is £50,000, with £20,000 for first place. One finalist, GAMMA TEAM, is a co-op salvage run into the Chernobyl Exclusion Zone, complete with mutants and a greedy company quota. We were never going to scroll past that one.
- Price: 20% off, $7.99 instead of $9.99. The discount also ends on October 5.
- Reviews: Mixed, 57% positive out of 9,551. The platform only launched on April 28, 2026 and still changes a lot from patch to patch.
- Buying after the trial: the install stays, nothing to download again. Facepunch hasn't said anything specific about progress carrying over.
- Minimum specs: Core i5-9600K or Ryzen 5 3600, 16 GB of RAM, GTX 1060 or RX 580 with 6 GB of VRAM, 12 GB of storage, Windows 10 or newer only.
Xbox: five Ubisoft games without Game Pass until October 4
This week's Free Play Days belong entirely to Ubisoft. The games are open from Thursday, October 1 to Sunday, October 4 for every Xbox player, no Game Pass Ultimate, Premium or Essential membership required. Microsoft doesn't give an exact end time, so I wouldn't leave it to late Sunday night. If you buy a game after trying it, your achievements and Gamerscore carry over, Microsoft says so directly.
| Game | Sale price | Regular price |
|---|---|---|
| Far Cry 6 | $8.99 | $59.99 |
| Assassin's Creed Odyssey | $11.99 | $59.99 |
| Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora | $16.49 | $29.99 |
| The Crew Motorfest | $47.99 | $59.99 |
| Skull and Bones | Microsoft didn't list a sale price | |
The best deal of the five is Far Cry 6 at 85% off, cheaper than lunch. Odyssey at $11.99 is good value too, just know you won't get halfway through it in two days, it's a hundred-hour game. Skull and Bones is running Year 3 Season 2, so the seas won't be empty. Microsoft only mentions Xbox One and Xbox Series X|S consoles, the post says nothing about PC.
Also free: Epic Games Store
Until October 8 at 15:00 UTC, Epic is giving away System Shock 2: 25th Anniversary Remaster and Buried Stars to keep. That's not a trial weekend: claim them and they stay in your library. Every past and upcoming Epic giveaway is in our running list, and Steam itself has its Autumn Sale on until October 8.
Sources
s&box on Steam: free access window, price, reviews, system requirements. Facepunch announcement of the free weekend and Game Jam final, October 2, 2026. Xbox Wire: Free Play Days, October 1, 2026. Epic Games Store giveaways from the store's official feed. Screenshots from the official Steam galleries of each game.
