Laying off workers for AI is nothing to celebrate.
Igor Bonifacic for Engadget
There's no two ways about: the Epic Games Store (EGS) launcher is bad. Even Epic CEO Tim Sweeney has admitted as much, describing it as "clunky" in an interview with podcaster Lex Fridman last year. So you would think a redesign would be good news, right? Think again. Because the way Epic has decided to promote this release fails to read the room.
"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," the company gleefully writes by way of introduction in its latest Epic Games Store blog post. The announcement comes just one day after Sweeney said Epic was in the midst of a major AI pivot. "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," he wrote on X.
We have a huge pivot underway here at Epic, moving developers around to retool for maximum AI acceleration.
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.
— Tim Sweeney (@TimSweeneyEpic) October 12, 2026
Even by Sweeney's standards, the post comes off as tone deaf. I was only this past March that the company carried out sweeping layoffs that cut its workforce by 1,000 employees. By Engadget's estimate, Epic had reduced its headcount by a quarter from the 4,000 employees that remained after it carried out an earlier set of layoffs in 2023. And now we have this release which celebrates vibe coding instead of the hard work of Epic's remaining engineers.
Admittedly the new launcher addresses some of the major issues of its predecessor, and in my testing it's definitely less "clunky" than the previous version. Epic says it's capable of launching faster than Steam. Speaking of Steam, the new software allows you to access any games you've installed on your computer through Valve's launcher from its own interface. The redesigned launcher is also available on Linux, a first for the company, which is great news for those of you who want to ditch Windows once and for all.
What it doesn't do is fix the identify crisis EGS has suffered from for years. There's no feature or hook you'll find here that's not available on Steam or GOG. Epic could use this new experience as a base to build those features, but if I'm honest, I would rather not support a company that is eager to replace its employees with AI.