Epic Takes Aim at Steam With 'Vibe-Coded' Launcher Preview

Epic Games has released a public preview of its rebuilt Epic Games Launcher, directly comparing its performance with Steam. The company claims faster startup, navigation and library loading while joking that the replacement launcher was "vibe coded."

The preview is available on Windows and macOS and also brings the Epic Games Launcher natively to Linux. Epic says the current version is still unfinished, with more features and optimization planned.

Epic's promotional material includes several comparisons with Valve's Steam client. In testing commissioned by Epic, the new launcher recorded an average cold-start time of 5.47 seconds compared with 10.07 seconds for Steam.

The company also claims its Store opens three times faster and says switching from the background to the library takes 0.36 seconds, compared with 0.42 seconds on Steam. Epic describes the redesigned library as up to 30 times faster to load.

The testing was carried out by independent QA company Keywords Studios in October 2026. Results were averaged across repeated tests on multiple PCs, although actual performance will vary depending on hardware and library size.

Epic introduced the preview with a deliberately playful explanation of its development, saying programming was difficult and that it had therefore "vibe coded" the new launcher. The company does not explain exactly how much generative AI was involved.

The wording appears partly tongue-in-cheek, so it should not be treated as confirmation that AI generated the entire client. What is clear is that Epic has substantially redesigned the software rather than simply refreshing its appearance.

Games now receive dedicated pages containing play controls, installation information, add-ons and recent activity. Users can also switch between grid and detail views, create collections, hide games and filter larger libraries more easily.

The download manager now displays download speeds, disk activity and separate sections for active, queued, scheduled and failed downloads. Social features are also more closely integrated, including parties and voice chat.

Existing purchases, installed games, cloud saves and account progress carry over when users sign into the preview.

Epic says several features are still missing, including some account-management and social tools. The company is asking users to report bugs while it works toward feature parity with the existing client.

Installing the preview replaces the legacy launcher on the same computer, although account data remains intact. Epic has not announced when the redesigned launcher will become the default stable release.