The Epic Games Store has spent years collecting dust in the digital gaming landscape, not for lack of games, but for its infamous launcher—a bloated, sluggish relic that has become a running joke among PC gamers. This time, however, the company isn’t just shrugging it off. In a rare moment of transparency, Epic’s leadership has outright admitted the launcher is 'really slow,' and they’re promising a complete overhaul.
At the heart of the problem lies a fundamental flaw in the launcher’s architecture. Every click, every navigation, triggers unnecessary calls to Epic’s backend servers, creating a laggy, unresponsive experience—especially for users with slower internet connections. The result? A launcher that feels more like a 2010s web app than a modern digital storefront.
The admission comes from Steven Allison, Epic’s vice president and general manager, who framed the issue bluntly: 'The launcher sucks. Let’s call it what it is. It’s really slow.' This isn’t the first time Epic’s CEO, Tim Sweeney, has acknowledged the problem. Nearly a year ago, he described the launcher as 'clunky,' yet little has changed since then. Now, Allison says the company is finally redirecting resources toward fixing what’s been a long-standing embarrassment.
The fix won’t be incremental. Epic’s development team is dismantling the launcher’s core systems and rebuilding them from scratch—a process Allison compares to 'pulling the guts out and putting new guts in.' The goal? A version so fast and responsive that users might actually say, 'Holy shit. It doesn’t suck so much.' That’s a tall order, but if executed properly, it could mark a turning point for Epic’s digital storefront.
Speed isn’t the only area getting attention. Epic is also introducing community-focused features, including forum-like spaces that will let users engage directly within the store. While the absence of a Steam-like forum has been a point of praise for some, others have criticized Epic for leaving out a key social element. These new features aim to bridge that gap—though whether they’ll attract the same level of toxicity as Steam’s forums remains to be seen.
Still, the timing is curious. The launcher has been in its current state since the store’s 2018 launch, and despite annual acknowledgments of its flaws, meaningful improvements have been slow to materialize. The question now is whether this rewrite will break the cycle—or if next year’s 'launcher sucks' confession will simply be a rerun of the same old script.
For now, Epic’s promise of a faster, more polished launcher is a step in the right direction. But given the history, gamers might be forgiven for waiting to see if the company can finally deliver on what it’s been promising for years.
