Epic Games has released a Preview of a rebuilt Epic Games Launcher for Windows, macOS and, for the first time, Linux, and the company is open about how it was made. “Programming is hard. So, instead of doing that, we vibe coded a new Epic Games Launcher that’s way faster and more responsive than the current one, and has a new look,” the Epic Games Store team wrote in its announcement post on Wednesday.
“Vibe coding” is shorthand for building software mostly by prompting AI tools rather than writing the code by hand. The admission lands a day after reports that Epic is moving its own game development to an AI-first approach, which RCG covered when Epic’s Marvel and Star Wars shooter was delayed.
Speedboat, not yacht
Epic says this first release is “light on features.” “Think of it as a speedboat and not a yacht!” the post reads, adding that it does have “advanced digital commerce technology such as a shopping cart.”
What is there focuses on speed and library management. Epic promises faster cold starts, quicker movement between the library and the store, and less load on your system while the Launcher runs in the background. Each game gets a dedicated page with its status, activity, details and play controls, and players can connect their other PC libraries to see everything they own in one place. Collections, grid and list views, a customizable top bar and search-as-you-type filtering are also included, along with a download monitor that shows download, read and write speeds plus active, queued, scheduled and failed downloads. Party and voice chat work across Fortnite, the Epic Games Store and the Epic Games app.
Accounts, purchased and installed games, cloud saves and progress carry over to the Preview and to the full release. Epic warns that, as with any beta, there could be issues, but says nothing in the Preview should interfere with development or with casual or competitive play once you’re in a game or developer tool. Feedback goes through a Send Feedback button in the Launcher.
Fortnite on Linux, eventually
The bigger news for Linux players is a commitment on Fortnite. Epic says it is rebuilding Easy Anti-Cheat and working with distro maintainers on security requirements. “Once it’s working with a critical mass of distro maintainers, we’ll bring Fortnite to Linux via the Epic Games Launcher,” the post says. Epic gave no date or target window.
Epic also says it will make the Easy Anti-Cheat improvements available to other developers so they can bring their games to Linux players. Until that work lands, Fortnite is still not playable on Linux through the new Launcher.
