Epic Games Claims Its Launcher Starts Faster Than Steam

The application was created by artificial intelligence with human participation.

Epic Games has released a preview version of the new Epic Games Store launcher, which aims to become a more serious competitor to Steam. According to the developers, the application was completely rewritten from scratch, changing both the interface and the store’s architecture.

At present, the preview version includes the core features of the launcher: the store, library, social features, and a section for developers working with Unreal Engine. Epic warns that the application is in an early stage of development and cannot yet boast a large number of features.

Performance is the main priority of the first update stage. According to Epic Games’ own tests, a cold launch of the new launcher takes 5.47 seconds, which is 46% faster than Steam. Reopening the application from the system tray takes only 0.36 seconds, which the company claims is 14% faster than the competitor.

The developers also note a significant acceleration in library performance. According to Keeley, it loads 30 times faster than in the previous version of the application.

Going forward, Epic plans to pay more attention to discovering new games and personalizing recommendations. According to Keeley, the company wants to make game discovery more relevant for each user, as well as develop social features that allow users to recommend games to friends and share them more easily.