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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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