Epic Games Store head confirms games launcher will receive much-needed improvements over the next year

Epic Games has acknowledged that its own game store launcher is in desperate need of several significant improvements, with executives pledging a year of major updates aimed at addressing long-standing performance issues.

The details:

• Speaking with Eurogamer, Epic Games Store Vice President and General Manager Steven Allison directly addressed concerns about the launcher's performance, confirming that the team is aware that it “sucks” and that improvements are on the way. “We got a lot of stuff out the door last year, and this year is going to be probably the best year for that stuff on the ‘big rocks,’” Allison explained. “And the big rocks are—the launcher sucks. Let’s call it what it is. It’s really slow. It makes calls to our back-end services to refresh every time you click around, and depending on your connection, you’ll have to wait a couple seconds.”
• Allison shared that the company is currently rebuilding the launcher's architecture, with improvements expected to roll out around May or June. The update will involve "pulling the guts out [and] putting new guts in," addressing the aforementioned back-end calls that cause delays when users navigate the store, with even more improvements coming in the future.
• Beyond performance improvements, Epic has announced plans to enhance the social experience on the platform. This includes adding community spaces on the store, a cross-platform text chat system, and full player profiles. The social features are being built as part of Epic Online Services, allowing other developers to integrate text chat functionality into their games later in 2026, with voice chat set to arrive shortly after.