Grand Theft Auto V: Epic Games Store site crashes after players rush to download game for free

Site stopped working as rumours circulated about the week’s sensational free giveaway

The Epic Games Store stopped functioning yesterday (14 May) after announcing that it would be giving away free downloads of Grand Theft Auto V.

Free PC games are available every week on the Epic Games Store; the previous release was an indie game called Death Coming.

After a rapidly deleted Twitter post by Epic Games prematurely announced that the most recent Grand Theft Auto game would be this week’s free game, the site was flooded with visitors for the 4pm reveal.

At the time, Epic wrote: “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.”

Subsequently, the company seemed to have fixed the issue, writing on Twitter: “We’ve deployed updates to provide resolution for these issues, and most users should be able to access the Epic Games Store and Launcher at this time.

“We’ll continue to monitor traffic and provide updates if further issues are encountered. Thank you for your continued patience!”

Grand Theft Auto V is one of the most popular video games of all time, with sales still strong despite being released in 2013.

The hit crime game is available to download for free until Thursday 21 May. Once they download it, players are able to keep the game forever.