Overview
- Epic made the new Epic Games Launcher available as a public Preview on Oct. 14 for Windows, macOS (Apple Silicon) and, for the first time, native Linux and warned the build is light on features and may contain bugs.
- The company says it used generative‑AI agents to write and review large portions of the new codebase while engineers supervised the process rather than hand‑writing the entire client.
- Epic commissioned Keywords Studios to measure responsiveness and reported a 5.47‑second cold start versus Steam’s 10.07‑second result, a comparison that was contested after Valve pushed a Steam client update that narrowed the gap to roughly the same range.
- Early Preview users have posted reports of visible bugs and UI issues including freezing, misplaced icons and unresponsive buttons, and Epic has asked for feedback through the app while continuing development.
- Epic is rebuilding Easy Anti‑Cheat to meet Linux security requirements so Fortnite and other multiplayer titles can run natively, and the release has intensified industry debate over maintainability, security and governance of AI‑assisted code.