Epic Games unveils Launcher V2 in re-attempt to topple Steam, says redesigned storefront is up to 6.5x faster - promises player profiles, user reviews, universal controller support, and much more

Epic Games unveils Launcher V2 roadmap

Epic Games has just shown off a new year-long roadmap for its launcher, promising to bring community-requested features and a faster overall platform in the next 12 months.

Earlier this year, Epic Games admitted its launcher sucked and committed to building a newer one that's much more competitive with Steam. Yesterday, at Unreal Fest, the company unveiled a roadmap for the next 12 months, promising significant upgrades in the form of Epic Games Launcher V2. The platform is being rebuilt internally so it's faster and includes a lot more features that will bring it up to parity with Valve's offering.

Some other things:

• Rebuilding the store from the ground
• Adding in-store Patch Notes
• Player reviews are finally coming
• The store will be 5x to 6.5x times faster
• Universal controller support
• All this will be in conjunction with Fortnite

Redesigned storefront and performance

The biggest change is a redesigned storefront that's truly personalized to the individual user. Games will be recommended based on taste and playstyle, while the game pages will try to do more than just show the price, title, and cover. Epic Games Store already looks more modern than Steam, so the visual efforts are appreciated, but it's the underlying speediness and a sense of curation that will really matter.

The v2 launcher will supposedly open up 5x faster on average upon cold boots, while restoring it from the system tray will be 6.5x faster on average. That's a huge improvement, but keep in mind that Epic got these numbers from a ridiculous test bench comprised of a 32-core AMD Threadripper, an RTX A6000, and 128GB of RAM. Not exactly consumer-grade hardware, especially during these times.

Player profiles, reviews, and community features

There's a lot more coming apart from the upgraded storefront. For instance, Epic will finally add sprawling player profiles with avatars and your game activity. That will enable everything from DMs to better voice chat and game-independent parties. You'll be able to write manual reviews for games instead of relying on star ratings. Developers will be able to add their own patch notes, directly integrated inside the store, aided by a new notification system that'll inform players of the coinciding update.

Roadmap timeline

The roadmap itself is split into three distinct categories: Up First, Up Next, and On Deck.

Chunked installation of Fortnite is among the first new features we'll see, along with cross-region gifting and a private beta for Epic Games Launcher V2.

Then, some of the aforementioned improvements are mentioned in the Up Next list, which will also bring the public beta of the new launcher for everyone to try.

Finally, things like universal controller support, akin to Steam's extensive toolset, will debut toward the end of the next 12 months. New APIs meant to help developers better understand the player base will be part of this update. The redesigned storefront is also part of this timeframe, so don't expect it in the following months.

Perhaps the most interesting feature mentioned here is third-party communities, which, if implemented right, could be as useful as Steam Forums.

Conclusion

All of these little changes, along with the more prominent ones, will combine to form the Epic Games Launcher V2. If this timeline is to be believed, by this time next year, we'll have a much more competitive and robust EGS than ever before. Steam is a great platform in its own right, but competition is always important to drive innovation. Regardless of what you feel about Epic, the company's efforts to rebuild its launcher are ultimately better for the consumer.

Reader comments

coolitic - The fact that it's taken them this long, to allegedly take it seriously, does not inspire confidence.

hotaru251 - tbh if it is even half true it will finally be usable. The amount of time it takes to update/open/change pages is disgusting atm and anything will make just using it better.

voyteck - I gave up on Epic entirely after having nothing but trouble running GTA V. At first, I had to log in with my admin credentials just to be able to play - after logging out - on my standard account. Eventually, I couldn't play it at all, and neither repairing nor reinstalling the game helped.

edzieba - Faster load times are nice, but adding more cruft like user-reviews, algorithmic recommendations, and yet another controller API? No thankyou, turning a simple store into another bloated mess like Steam is not a good move.

Kicapan07 - Good for them and the people who use them but I'll still be avoiding their launcher like the plague.

circadia - Probably a yes, as indicated by Epic's job listings. They're looking for engineers who can bring kernel anti-cheat into Linux for Fortnite.

htwingnut - Sorry but no thanks. Epic is awful. They have a LONG way to go to be even close to Steam. With Steam, i can copy the game folder to another computer and it will just work. Or put them on an external drive and use them between my desktop and laptop or any other computer. With Epic you have to download it every single place. It's so locked down it's dumb.

WMcMaster - As a steam enjoyer I have absolutely no problem with more / better competition. Valve is always made out to be the bad guys because they control a huge portion of the market but the fact of the matter is and always has been that the competition has sucked.

abufrejoval - For years now Epic tried to force their "Online Services" on me, together with the launcher. It doesn't say what it does, but since everything I want works perfectly without it, it can only be spyware. For years I've told it "no", only to be ignored and have it re-installed on every update. Of course I uninstalled it immediately after. First thing the latest release (something with a "2*" in front) changed: it refuses to run unless the "Online Service" is installed... Pretty sure that's illegal in Europe, but US IT giants just don't care about the law. So for now I keep the service desabled and nothing's changed, except that perhaps Epic's client gets to phone home a little less. Whenever I think of those guys making these decisions in US corporate headquarters, I find myself mentally applying some of the violence that many of these games contain to them. I'd really rather be civilized, but they bring out the worst in me.