It's been more than 7 years since the Epic Games Store debuted alongside its launcher as a unified platform. For many, it's still a glorified Fortnite client: one that's opened to claim free games from time to time, but only out of necessity. The launcher has never posed a real threat to Steam for many reasons, and Epic is finally admitting to those shortcomings, with a promise to build a new version that's much better.
"We’re in the process of rebuilding the underlying architecture of the Epic Games Store Launcher and plan to ship improvements this summer. These changes will make the storefront on the launcher responsive and feel good to use, with fast load times and greater stability."
The news stems from the yearly platform review Epic released yesterday, citing a 4% increase in third party (non-Epic games) players on EGS. Amidst all that data, the company included a little section on what's next for 2026, where it formally announced a revamped Epic Games Store that will feature a "better social experience for players" with new additions like avatars, player profiles and private messaging.
"These social capabilities will be extended to Epic Online Services, opening up text chat for other developers to include in their games later this year. In Q2, we will add voice chat and game-independent parties to our social framework." Afterward, Steve Allison — GM for Epic Games Store — sat down with various outlets to provide insight on the journey the platform's taken and where it's going now.
Becoming competitive with Steam is the number one priority that drives most of these changes. But change starts with first acknowledging what's wrong, and Allison had heaps of self-awareness. "... The launcher sucks. Let's call it what it is. It's really slow," remarked Allison while speaking to Eurogamer. He went on to break down why that is:
"It makes calls to our back-end services to refresh every time you click around, and depending on your connection, you'll have to wait a couple seconds. And that just doesn't feel good, especially when people are comparing and contrasting and dual using one that doesn't do that." Allison is, of course, referring to Steam at the end there, which has always been very responsive — even if it's not the prettiest.
He then explained the branching issues that make Epic's launcher less desirable than even proprietary solutions on console. "We have no social framework in the store, like other stores — even console platforms — which have the ability to communicate with your friends, and we just kind of stripped that out during COVID and never brought it back."
Beyond fanboyism, Epic's storefront is very barebones in terms of actual functionality that players appreciate or have grown accustomed to. Forums are a standout omission here which enable a greater sense of community. The company has focused on developer-facing concerns and bringing EGS to mobile for the past few years, so it's finally time to adjust tracks back to the gamer.
Work on the upgraded Epic Games Store and launcher started back in November 2025, and the company plans to release it this summer. Epic wants to increase its market share in the PC gaming segment to 30-40% in the next five years and topple Steam's monopoly. Valve currently enjoys 90% of the pie, despite Epic offering a more lucrative 88-12 percent revenue distribution offer compared to Steam's 70-30.
Allison was confident in saying the "battle has not been lost at all", mirroring the famous words of Logan Roy on Succession: "This is not the end. I'm going to build something better — something faster, lighter, meaner, wilder." Now, whether Epic's renovation project imitates the titular character's fate on the show or subverts it, well that remains to be seen.
There's also the Tim Sweeney of it all: Epic's rather vocal CEO has presented some very polarizing opinions, especially pertaining to AI, in recent times. These simply serve as ammo to a market that already rejects the EGS as a viable alternative, and there's no saying when the executive will upset the community once again. (If you think what Sweeney says doesn't matter, just take a look at how revered Gabe Newell is amongst gamers.)
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