Epic says its new 'vibe coded' Epic Games Store launcher is faster than Steam

The big Epic Games Store rebuild teased earlier this year has arrived as a new "preview" client available to download for Windows and Mac, as well as Linux for the first time.

PC Gamer was shown a demonstration of the client in advance of the announcement, and the speed improvement appeared significant. Epic claims that it's halved the launcher's startup time, and that it now goes from a cold start to the store page 46% faster than Steam. (Epic says its technical improvements have been verified by an external vendor. We have yet to test the client ourselves.)

There are also updates to the interface: A redesigned library view is the standout change, and it includes the option to bring in shortcuts to games installed with Steam and other clients.

In a blog post, Epic refers to the new client as "vibe coded," a term for prompting AI tools to produce code. …