Written by Metal Messiah

Epic Games has just announced that a two-factor authentication (2FA) will now be required periodically for those who want to claim FREE games from April 28 till May 21. The reason for this particular move remains unclear, but any added layer of “security and protection” is a welcome change for sure, according to the company, when it comes to Epic Games user accounts.

The Epic Games Store will require that all users enable a two-factor authentication before they can access the store’s weekly list of free games, while also trying to promote enhanced security measures amongst its user base.  This is a “temporary” move taken by the company though.

Few other companies have also been trying to convince users to adopt a two-factor authentication. But the Epic Games Store has appeared on the market much more recently than the others.

The store is having an aggressive marketing policy, while it also offers free games on a regular basis at the same time, trying to get a larger share of the pie more like. This new measure announced by the company will only apply to people who are trying to claim FREE games, which sounds a bit awkward, if you ask me.

If you do not have a two-factor authentication enabled on your EPIC games account, you will be greeted by the following message when trying an attempt to claim a free game:

“Two Factor Authentication Required.”

“Claiming this free game requires you to have Two-Factor Authentication setup on your account. Two-Factor authentication provides an additional level of security to your Epic Games account and will help prevent unauthorized access.”

This new security feature is available to everyone; and it can be activated any time. Epic store recommends keeping this option as “enabled”. If you don’t have this security feature enabled, then you might be required to provide the codes while claiming new games on the storefront.

While there is no official reason given for this particular security measure, this move from EPIC games does arrive after Nintendo also asked people to enable two-factor on their devices, following a data leak that affected 160,000 accounts.