Epic Games Store is offering GTA 5 for free this week

Get one of the most popular video games of all time without spending a dime.

David Priest Former editor

David Priest is an award-winning writer and editor who formerly covered home security for CNET.

See full bio

David Priest

May 15, 2020 9:45 a.m. PT

It's a steal.
Screenshot by Carrie Mihalcik/CNET

One of the most popular video games of all time, Rockstar's Grand Theft Auto 5, is being offered for free in Epic Games' online store. The PC game is available to download for free until May 21.

The Epic Games Store has been doing game giveaways since December 2018, including popular titles like What Remains of Edith Finch, The Witness and Celeste. New free games are revealed every Thursday.

When GTA 5 became available yesterday, many users experienced trouble accessing the deal, with people reporting 500 errors and slow load times. Epic acknowledged the problems in a tweet Thursday, but appears to have resolved issues later in the day.

We are currently experiencing high traffic on the Epic Games Store.
We are aware that users may be encountering slow loading times, 500 errors, or launcher crashing at this time and we are actively working to scale. We'll provide an update as soon as we can.
— Epic Games Store (@EpicGames) May 14, 2020

GTA 5 was originally released in 2013 and quickly became the second-best-selling game of all time (depending on your count), and it's one of the highest-profile games to be offered. The site's challenges seem to reflect the continuing demand for the title.

Epic Games didn't respond to a request for further comment.