Epic Games Store Crashes on Thursday Free Game Day as Hogwarts Legacy Breaks Servers

Thursday 11th December 2025 turned into a nightmare for PC players hunting their weekly free game on Epic Games Store. The platform buckled under pressure when Hogwarts Legacy went live as a freebie during The Game Awards broadcast.

Why This Thursday Mattered

Every Thursday at 8am PT (11am ET), millions check Epic for their weekly giveaway. This week was different. Epic shifted the reveal to align with The Game Awards ceremony, going live around 6:23pm PT instead.

Bad timing.

The reveal of a £50 AAA blockbuster sent hordes rushing to claim their copy. Servers weren't ready. Within minutes, users across social media reported crashes, endless loading screens, and the dreaded "unavailable" message where Hogwarts Legacy should have appeared.

The Damage

Reports flooded in from 9:28pm Eastern Time, according to DownDetector. Users faced multiple problems:

• Cart errors at checkout
• "Unavailable" labels on the game page
• 500 internal server errors
• Complete launcher crashes
• Store browsing failures

The free games section went missing entirely for some users. Others got tantalizingly close, adding Hogwarts Legacy to cart before watching it vanish.

"Had in cart at checkout. Then unavailable," one frustrated user posted on Slickdeals. "They better bring this back online."

The Big Miss

Here's what stings. Thursdays are sacred for Epic users. Weekly freebies have run like clockwork for years. Miss the seven-day window and you miss out forever.

Players who couldn't access the store on Thursday faced genuine worry about losing their chance at one of 2025's biggest giveaways. The fact that Hogwarts Legacy sells for £50 normally made the stakes even higher.

Epic's official status page acknowledged the mess hours later, noting "Epic Games Store General Issue" and confirming problems with purchasing and redemption.

What Caused the Collapse

Put simply, demand obliterated capacity. Hogwarts Legacy sold over 30 million copies since launching in February 2023. Offering it free to Epic's massive user base created a perfect storm.

The game was 2023's best-seller in the US, beating even Call of Duty. Warner Bros. Discovery has already confirmed a sequel is in development, calling it a "very big priority" for the company.

Nobody expected quiet Thursday morning traffic. Instead, The Game Awards audience descended en masse.

When Will It Work Again

Good news arrived slowly. Users who kept trying eventually succeeded, with many reporting success after waiting a few hours. The promotion runs until 18th December, giving everyone breathing room to claim their copy once traffic normalises.

Epic hasn't issued specific repair timelines, but based on past outages, these problems typically resolve within 6-12 hours as demand spreads out.

The store's transaction processing was still showing issues as of 10pm ET on 12th December, though many users reported successful claims by that point.

The Holiday Setup

This Thursday disaster comes right before Epic's annual holiday blitz. Starting 18th December, the store launches daily mystery game giveaways running through to January. Previous years have offered 12-17 games in this period.

Hogwarts Legacy sets a high bar for what's coming. Past holiday events have included gems like GTA V and The Witcher 3, both of which also crashed servers when announced.

The Thursday timing issue may not repeat, since daily giveaways typically go live at standard morning hours.

What Users Should Do

Your window stays open until Wednesday 18th December at approximately 11am EST. Don't panic. Don't spam refresh. Check back during off-peak hours like early morning or mid-afternoon.

Visit store.epicgames.com/en-US/free-games directly. The launcher may still show hiccups, but the website often processes claims more smoothly.

Once claimed, Hogwarts Legacy sits in your library permanently. No rush to download immediately.

Players who claim all upcoming holiday freebies could add hundreds of pounds worth of games to their libraries. Set daily reminders starting 18th December to avoid missing any 24-hour windows.

The Bigger Picture

This outage highlights a weakness in Epic's infrastructure during major promotions. Similar crashes occurred when Borderlands 3 and other AAA titles went free.

The shift from morning to evening release time compounded problems, concentrating traffic into a narrow window when millions watched The Game Awards simultaneously.

Epic's weekly free game programme has given away over £10,000 worth of titles since 2018. The strategy successfully converts users from Steam and builds Epic's player base. But server capacity hasn't always kept pace with ambition.

For now, patience wins. Hogwarts Legacy will stay free for days, not hours. The holiday sale brings more opportunities. And Thursday free games will return to their normal schedule next week.

Just maybe not during prime-time viewing hours.