Epic is building a ground-up rebuild of its launcher that will be 5x faster

Epic Games has revealed it is developing a ground-up rebuild of its Epic Games Store launcher, aiming to drastically improve performance. The news came from a presentation at Unreal Fest, portions of which were shared on X by user LuKaOnIndeed.

According to the presentation, the upcoming Launcher V2 will be five times faster on an average cold start and 6.5 times faster when restoring the app from the system tray. Epic acknowledged that the current launcher has been problematic for both players and developers. Some users have even resorted to accessing free Epic games through Steam to bypass the slow and clunky interface.

Epic stated in the presentation that "every developer in this room and every player we have has experienced challenges with the current launcher." The new launcher will first enter a private beta before a public release. No specific launch date has been announced, but in a February press release Epic said it is "in the process of rebuilding the underlying architecture of the Epic Games Store Launcher" and plans to deliver improvements this summer.

Beyond the launcher overhaul, Epic also outlined additional storefront enhancements during Unreal Fest. Priorities include in-store patch notes, player reviews, quick-access categories, and a personalized home page.