Epic is rebuilding its launcher from the ground up: Launcher V2 is expected to be up to 6.5 times faster and finally give Steam some serious competition.
Epic has been giving away free games for years– and yet most of you still dutifully go back to Steam afterward. The company now aims to break this very habit by completely rebuilding its launcher from the ground up.
At Unreal Fest in Chicago, Epic let the cat out of the bag and presented a plan that sounds ambitious: The Epic Games Launcher is set to be rebuilt from the ground up—and in the process, become significantly faster than what you’re used to.
Steam Features Finally Coming to the Epic Games Store
The revamp goes by the name of Launcher V2:According to internal tests by Epic, the new version launches from a cold start on average five times faster than the current one. When bringing it back from the system tray, Epic even promises an average return to the game library that’s 6.5 times faster.
Speed, however, is only half the battle. To truly compete with Steam, the Epic Games Store has so far lacked basic convenience and community features that have been standard at Valve for over a decade.
The new update package delivers a whole range of features that many of you have been asking for for a long time:
- You can finally set your avatars and create a public user profile—currently, you can only see your friends’ achievements.
- Written user reviews directly from other players are making their way into the store, in addition to the existing star rating.
- Developers will be able to publish their patch notes directly in the launcher in the future.
- A hardware check will let you know right in the launcher how well a game will run on your computer.
- Universal controller support, whether you’re using an Xbox or PlayStation gamepad.
- For supported games, you’ll be able to decide for yourself which parts you want to download to save storage space. The first game to feature this is the in-house titleFortnite.
Epic has invested hundreds of millions of dollars in exclusive titles and giveaways over the past few years to gain market share. But the tactic has only been partially successful—people ultimately prefer to buy their full-price titles on Steam, where they have their friends and the game library they’ve built up over the years.
What do you think of the announced changes? Could a better launcher convince you to shop at the Epic Games Store more often in the future, or does another launcher remain the undisputed number one for you? Feel free to let us know in the comments.
