According to Epic, its replacement launcher takes 5.47 seconds to boot, a cold-start time it says is 46% faster than Steam’s. You can download the preview now, though those numbers reflect Epic’s comparisons rather than independent tests showing an advantage across the board. Epic has also highlighted its development approach: the company says it “vibe coded” the launcher.
In a Wednesday blog post announcing the preview, the Epic Games Store Team opened with a notably blunt explanation: “Programming is hard. So, instead of doing that, we vibe coded a new Epic Games Launcher that’s way faster and more responsive than the current one, and has a new look,”
A second comparison concerns a “restore from system tray to library,” which Epic says the preview handles 14% faster than Valve’s storefront. Alongside the cold-start measurement, that covers two particular tasks, not the launcher’s performance as a whole. Neither result establishes that everything runs faster than Steam, and the source supplies no independent tests demonstrating that broader advantage.
Other improvements Epic promises include “snappier navigation between library and store” and “less load on your system while it runs in the background.” Features available in the preview include voice chat, expanded information about games in your library, library views you can customize, quicker filtering options, and additional download-speed data.
For now, the release is an early version with relatively few features, rather than what Epic presents as a fully equipped replacement. As the company explains: “This first release is light on features. Think of it as a speedboat and not a yacht! Though it does have advanced digital commerce technology such as a shopping cart.”
How Epic built it poses another question. With vibe coding, developers use AI-generated code without necessarily knowing how the program it produces works. The approach has found supporters among AI devotees, but software engineering veterans criticize its maintenance difficulties and the greater risk of security vulnerabilities. A quick startup doesn’t remove the difficulty of building on code you don’t understand.
For Polygon writer Elijah Gonzalez, the possibility of those vulnerabilities makes entering credit card information into the launcher disconcerting. His concern stems from the development method; it doesn’t demonstrate that this preview has a security flaw. More broadly, Gonzalez suggests that advertising AI use in this manner could bring the already-disliked Epic Games Store additional detractors.
The launcher also fits Epic’s larger move toward generative AI. In a Monday post on X, CEO Tim Sweeney outlined that shift: “We have a huge pivot underway here at Epic, moving developers around to retool for maximum AI acceleration.”
Rather than describing a plan to cut headcount, Sweeney said the changes would let employees produce more: “The aim isn’t to do the same stuff with fewer people, but to enable everyone here to build MORE and BETTER stuff, and to bring the benefits to all teams using Unreal.”
Development tools aren’t the limit of his AI advocacy. U.S. senators called on Apple and Google to take X out of their app stores after AI-generated sexualized images of real people, including minors, flooded the platform. Sweeney responded by arguing that a ban on the app and Grok would let politicians “censor all of their political opponents.”
The company behind Fortnite has previously admitted that AI helped it create Fortnite skins. Epic also released a controversial Darth Vader NPC powered by generative AI, which was manipulated into saying slurs. With this launcher, Epic’s AI push reaches the software people use to browse and purchase games. The open questions go beyond how quickly its window opens to whether the underlying code is maintainable and secure.
