Just when the Epic Games Launcher appeared prefer it might need been the ultimate salvo within the launcher wars, alongside come Rockstar Games with a launcher of their very own. The imaginatively-named Rockstar Games Launcher allows you to launch Rockstar Games games, and in addition purchase them. Okay? And? Why would I need that? Well, Rockstar are hoping to tempt folks to put in it by initially providing 2004’s Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas as a freebie.
The Rockstar Games Launcher sells and launches a whopping six games plus GTA Online money playing cards. A one-stop-shop, it isn’t. It additionally boasts groundbreaking options like cloud saves and automated updates for downloaded games. It may also scan your PC for some (but not all) different Rockstar Games games so you possibly can launch them by Rockstar’s consumer quite than their native method, in case you need that?
I scoff, however I suppose it’s a higher consumer for the handful of weirdos who’ve purchased PC games immediately from Rockstar by ye olde Rockstar Social Club.
Grand Theft Auto V is the one Rockstar Games game I’ve put in, and now I can hearth up Rockstar’s Launcher and press a button to make it launch Steam to launch GTA V. Real helpful. And attempting to launch my Steam copy of V immediately from Steam now launches Rockstar’s Launcher first. Great. Thanks, Rockstar. I used to be fearful my game was insufficiently launching. It will be laborious to inform, what with it already taking ages. I’m comforted by the doublelaunching.
“For a limited time,” individuals who install the Rockstar Games Launcher will get GTA: San Andreas totally free. It’s nonetheless a good contender for ‘best GTA’. I’m unsure which model that is, although to my eye it seems to have the squashed side ratio of the the 2014 update which additionally eliminated some radio songs. But it’s free so hey.
Take-Two Interactive, Rockstar’s dad or mum firm, said earlier this year that they themselves weren’t planning to open their very own retailer. “If [Take-Two] turn around and make Red Dead Redemption 2 or GTA 6 exclusive to the 2Kash & Karry, I’ll be sorely disappointed,” I mentioned again in February. I suppose Rockstar opening their very own retailer is technically a special factor? HMM.
A wild-eyed dreamer would possibly learn this as an indication that Red Dead Redemption 2 is coming to PC. Why else would Rockstar launch a near-useless new Launcher 4 years after their final PC launch and with no confirmed new PC games on the horizon?
This bard who descends from the mountaintop with wild hair billowing within the wind may additionally suspect that Rockstar are contemplating a transfer away from Steam however don’t need to go to Epic both (in contrast to fellow Take-Two subsidiary 2K Games, who revealed Borderlands three as an Epic unique). Could this be a prelude to a Rockstar-exclusive RDR2? I suppose there aren’t many different games that would justify an entire new retailer by themselves.
Why else would Rockstar do that? Surely not simply because they’ll? Ha ha go on, again up the mountain you auld scamp. Away with you.
Disclosure: Like half the inhabitants of Edinburgh, I do know some of us who work at Rockstar. People won’t know they know Rockstar folks, however they do. It took me actually years to search out out some folks I knew had been Rockstar folks. They are all over the place.
