After promising everyone free GTA V, Epic Games Store crashed hard

Well, that didn't take long. On Wednesday, GamePressure reported that it was in touch with a "reliable" source in the Epic Games Store world who claimed that the company's next promotion would involve listing the insanely popular Grand Theft Auto V (GTA V) for free. The dates for downloading the title were rumored to run from May 14 to May 21.

The very first day, however, Epic Games Store crashed — and hard. To be fair, it was bound to happen. A cult classic like GTA V will inevitably bring in waves upon waves of traffic and subsequent delays in loading time and more. Especially under the coronavirus, when millions are under lockdown and, naturally, bored.

Absolute chaos, folks — On Thursday morning, the website acknowledged the crash on Twitter. "We are currently experiencing high traffic on the Epic Games Store," it tweeted. "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. We'll provide an update as soon as we can."

You probably already expected this but Twitter users were quick to yell about the crash on the platform.

A shining moment for GTA V — If this digital mishap tells us anything, it is that GTA V continues to boast a powerful and rather immensely enduring cultural legacy. It was released in 2013 but managed to win 10 million sales between February 2019 and April of this year. On Twitch, it's one of the most played titles with some 78 million hours of views.

And while it sounds nice that you would have been able to waste your weekend away with GTA V on for free, the release will likely help Rockstar make some in-game money through online transactions. Hopefully Epic Games Store can resume operations so that Rockstar can get some coin and you, some entertainment.