Epic lets AI write new game launcher, promises higher speed

Epic Games opened a public preview of a new version of the Epic Games Launcher on October 14, 2026, the program used to buy, download and launch games from Epic. Preview means it is open for anyone to try, but is not yet finished.

According to Epic's own announcement, the launcher is "vibe-coded" because programming is hard. Vibe coding means largely letting an AI write the code from descriptions instead of writing it by hand. Epic has not said which AI tools were used.

Faster, says Epic

Epic says the new launcher is much faster and more responsive than the current one. The company claims it opens the store in 5.47 seconds on a cold start (when the program is launched completely from scratch), versus 10.07 seconds for Steam. That is 46 percent faster. When restoring from the taskbar, Epic says it is 14 percent faster than Steam (0.36 versus 0.42 seconds), and the new library is said to be 30 times faster.

The measurements were commissioned by Epic and carried out by Keywords Studios: five tests on 13 Windows platforms. No comparison figures against Epic's old launcher have been provided.

New and missing

The launcher gets, among other things, a library page for games, a unified downloads page, collections for organizing the library, a built-in social menu, advanced search and detailed download information. There is also party and voice chat across Fortnite and Epic's services.

The preview version can be downloaded for Windows 10 and 11, macOS 12 or later and Linux (Ubuntu 22.04 LTS, Fedora 43 or Debian 12). It lacks some social features and account management options, however, and the social menu can be neither closed nor resized. Epic itself calls the preview light on features. Unreal developers and competitive players in Fortnite and Rocket League are advised to stay with the old launcher.

Epic plans a stable version after feedback, but has not given a date.

Broader AI push

According to Dexerto, the announcement comes after reports that Epic has asked developers on a Marvel/Star Wars project to work "AI-first" with, among others, Anthropic's Claude. Siliconera points to Bloomberg coverage of a "no more handwritten code" policy. Epic's communications chief says the company is betting on AI-accelerated development led by Epic's developers.

The announcement said nothing about security or data handling in an AI-built launcher that manages user accounts and payment data. The sources also do not make clear how much of the code AI has written, or how much humans have reviewed.