Clone Drone in the Danger Zone is this week's free Epic game

Epic Games Store is offering the voxel sword-fighting game Clone Drone in the Danger Zone for free to all users until April 9. The game replaces last week's giveaway and requires a standard Epic Games account to claim.

My Epic Games library is mostly a graveyard of weekly freebies I claim out of habit and never install. This week is an exception. Developer Doborog Games built a genuinely excellent physics brawler that deserves an actual download instead of just sitting in your digital backlog.

Slicing off voxel limbs

The premise is straightforward. An evil robot empire has captured you, downloaded your consciousness into a mechanical gladiator, and forced you to fight in a neon-lit arena. The actual combat relies on a precise voxel damage system. Every swing of your laser sword cuts exactly where it hits. If an enemy slices off your robot's left arm, you drop your shield but keep fighting. If they cut off your leg, you hop around the arena on the remaining one until someone lands a fatal blow to your head or torso.

Doborog launched the game into Early Access back in 2017. The indie scene was flooded with physics-heavy brawlers at the time, but most relied on clumsy, gelatinous movement for comedic effect. Clone Drone went the opposite direction. The movement is tight and responsive. Surviving the arena requires careful spacing, stamina management, and timing your strikes to bypass enemy shields.

Over the course of a four-year Early Access period leading up to the 2021 version 1.0 release, the studio built out a massive amount of content. They added a full story mode spanning five chapters. They implemented cooperative multiplayer and a battle royale mode. The core loop across all these modes remains focused on upgrading your robot between rounds. You start with a basic sword and gradually unlock jetpacks, energy bows, giant hammers, and fire upgrades that melt through armor.

The audience gets to spawn enemies

A major reason the game caught on during its development phase was its native streaming integration. Broadcasters can connect the game directly to their Twitch channels. Viewers then use chat commands to bet on the outcome of arena matches. More importantly, viewers earn coins they can spend to spawn specific enemies into the arena to make the streamer's life miserable.

Even if you play offline, the game captures that broadcast feeling. Two robot commentators named Commentatron and Analysis-Bot provide running commentary on your performance. They actively mock you when you miss swings, die to basic environmental hazards, or get overwhelmed by a swarm of robot spiders. The voice acting is entirely deadpan and fits the absurd tone perfectly.

The enemy variety scales up quickly. You start off fighting basic sword bots. Within a few rounds, the game throws jetpack archers, giant hammer-wielding brutes, and heavily armored raptors at you. The arena itself also becomes a threat. Jump pads, spike traps, and saw blades force you to constantly reposition.

Available until April 9

The game normally costs $20 and does not require a high-end PC to run well.

The Epic store is also hosting a smaller developer giveaway for a game called Vornyca.

Clone Drone is a great palette cleanser between massive RPGs. It is the exact kind of tight, focused arcade experience that works perfectly in twenty-minute bursts.