The new one opens faster and has a better UI, but it feels so bad to use, every resize and interaction causes elements to shift around weirdly, the scrolling feels horrible somehow, there's a random sidebar (pictured) that is empty and that i can't hide. Also, although, to it's credit, the app opens fast and responds instantly to clicks, every async load (store page, game banner) is incredibly sluggish.

And on Linux it's only available as an app-image, doesn't support Server Side Decorations and somehow reverts my cursor the default X one, which I have never seen an app-image do.

Basically it kinda sucks, although the UX team did a good job, the UI looks nice enough and is easy to navigate, if only because there's like no features.

Edit: apparently the sidebar is meant to be a social panel, but it broke as soon as I resized the window, lmao.

Why do these need 5-10 seconds to start at all?

I know steam does it so they can jamb a big pop up ad in your face, but this seems asinine.

Hmm. Will have to give it a try. Just got a Steam Machine and was about to go futz with running the old launcher under proton.

This is Epic, the company that have recently mandated slop only development across multiple game lines... Yeah that launcher isn't something I would be comfortable putting my real name and financial details into.

Just use Heroic launcher. No need to bother with a half baked effort from Epic.

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.

A direct quote from the official announcement BTW, so you need not wonder how much slop it is - the answer is right there and it's 100%!

Yeah I commented on the post without even delving in to the article. Turns out my knee jerk reaction was absolutely pin point accurate huh? I'll be honest though, I haven't created an Epic Games account despite years of them offering bribe free games, I wasn't going to magically become a convert now they have given up on human developers.

As a testament to the quality of the epic store once I learned I could install Fortnite from the Microsoft store I switched to that instead. I’ll probably just stick to heroic if I want to use it in my Linux install.

You can disable that popup and have it start in your Library in the settings window to avoid that btw.

I mostly use big picture mode now, so it’s not a huge deal. I just think it’s tacky.

Didn’t know you could turn it off on settings.

Which setting is it?

I don't see one that is an obvious match but I'm probably looking for the wrong words.

I thought you were joking, but they literally write that in the official announcement!?!?! 🤡🤡🤡 🤣🤣🤣

Or an even better option is to just not buy games on the Epic store.

It is settings then interface and there is a toggle for "Notify me about blah blah" - turn that off

Maybe this one?

"Notify me about additions or changes to my games, new releases, and upcoming releases"

I have something running so I can't restart to test it out and I appreciate you sharing the knowledge!

And people get mad about Steam's market dominance. This is their competition!

Absolutely, and Steam will continue to dominate as long as they are by far the better service.
I hate monopolies more than most, but although Steam dominate, they are not a monopoly, and as a Linux user, Steam really has done a lot to help Linux, and they deliver good service.
Of course I also use GOG, no doubt Steam is the better service, but GOG is awesome too because the games are without DRM.
They also tried to support Linux, but the economy did not allow for them to do it properly, but DRM free is a huge improvement over the decidedly Linux hostile policies we see from some companies.

Buy?!? What is this word?

I am pretty sure the only reason anyone here uses it is to claim the giveaways.

Yes that is the one.

Don't worry, I've never paid for a game on Epic.

Though it does have advanced digital commerce technology such as a shopping cart.

I'm dying 🤣

I appreciate that they are trying to be less bad. But as long as heroic (legendary) exists, I have zero reason to ever use this. I'd much rather have a launcher for 3 platforms than 3 launchers. Is also much more feature rich for me on Linux, but even on Windows that was already the case years ago.

I've also read that it's supposed to be fully or mostly vibe coded, which kinda explains the issue you're seeing...

For sure, I personally always have had issues with heroic, and don't use GOG, which is why I went to try the new Epic launcher.

In an ideal world Epic would be doing so badly that Tim Sweeney was reduced to promising to personally provide blowjobs if people would just open an account. Unfortunately Fortnite means they can afford to just buy their way into a market position no matter how shitty they are.

@cerebralhawks@lemmy.dbzer0.com Steam alternative huh? You go right ahead and dogfood them. I'll pass.

My favorite relevant pic. IIRC, this variant was made around the time Roblox was getting heat for protecting pedophiles.

I stopped redeeming freebies too, I can't even be bothered anymore. 700 games on there and I've played 3 of them.

I like the little GOG in the corner. Not really competing with Steam so much, but not actively destroying itself either (although I'd like to see an official Linux client).

I installed a few games and the only one I could launch was brotato. However the inputs were all messed up. When I tried to report it, it asked me to upload a screenshot. When I did that, it opened up what looked like a very old version of Nautilus? The GNOME file manager. But I was running KDE 🤷

If it worked, that might be a good reason. But that doesn't seem to be the case.

Could you just have had nautilus ibstalled somehow?

They bragged about vibe-coding this, didn't they?

Holy balls that is an absolutely embarrassing thing to post. Who the fuck cares if it takes 0.06 seconds (yes, that is six hundredths of a second) less to maximize the application window? It's such a meaningless improvement to such a low impact metric that it's embarrassing to even mention it. Convinces me even more that they know it sucks so bad that they're grasping at any positive number regardless of how practically insignificant it is.

They 100% did

https://arstechnica.com/gaming/2026/10/programming-is-hard-epic-games-leans-on-vibe-coding-for-its-new-launcher-app/

Brought to you by the same guys that were 100% behind web3 gaming because "it's the fyutyuuuurrr" a couple of years ago.

they did announce they're working on a Linux client a few months ago btw

isn't epic the one that just told their entire staff to not write a single line of code and use AI 100% for everything?