Summary

GOGis giving away popular roguelikeCaveblazersin an effort to promote its Winter Sale 2023, which just introduced new offers, including a 10% discount onBaldur’s Gate 3. This early Christmas gift arrives mere days afterGOG gave awayLost Ruinsas part of the same promotion.

CD Projekt Red’s sister company has been holding holiday season sales for about 15 years now. As the digital retailer grew over the years, so too did the scope of those promos. The2023 iteration of the GOG Winter Sale promised 5 free gamesand over 6,000 steep discounts on a big chunk of the storefront’s catalog.

Shortly after the company has given awayLost Ruins, it has now extended the same treatment toCaveblazers, which isfree to claim on GOGuntil December 25. While both titles are 2D side-scrollers,Caveblazersshould be much more appealing to fans of action roguelikes, which is what it is at its core. Developed by Rupeck Games and published by the indie specialists at Yogscast,Caveblazerswas originally released in mid-2017, debuting to largely positive reviews. As of late 2023, the game has an aggregate review score of 72 on Metacritic, in addition to boasting over 3,000 “Very Positive” reviews on Steam.

After spending nearly two years as a PC exclusive,Caveblazerswas also ported to the Nintendo Switch, where it currently retails at $15, or 50% more compared to its original version. That said, while GOG is literally giving it away for free right now, the game is also currently available for just $0.97 on Steam, having been treated to a 90% discount. Although both that deal and GOG Winter Sale 2023 run until early next year, fans only have until December 25, at 2pm UTC to claim their free version ofCaveblazersfromGOG.

This is by far the most content-packed entry that has so far featured in the company’s latest holiday giveaway; whileLegend of Keepers: Career of a Dungeon Manager—the first title given away in the promo—was by no means short, it very much pales in comparison toCaveblazers, which is widely touted as one ofthe longest roguelike games evermade. A typical playthrough takes around 40 hours, whereas a completionist one can run for several times longer.

That makesCaveblazersone of the best bang-for-buck purchases that fans of roguelikes can make at any given time, even at its full price. But as a free product, it makes for a pretty stellar holiday gift from GOG. This DRM-free version of the game that’s currently being given away by the Steam rivalshould also play well on the Steam Deck, having already been verified for the device.