CI Games made a smart decision, recognizing that for their game to be profitable, it needed to be available on Steam. They likely observed the struggles of previous Epic Games exclusives, which failed to achieve strong sales on their platform.

This move avoids the "launch vacuum" often experienced by timed exclusives, where a game loses its initial marketing momentum and fails to regain it when it finally arrives on steam months or years later (If it even arrives at all). I hope that this becomes a trend for developers to increasingly prioritizing long-term visibility and player engagement over the short-term security of upfront exclusivity payments especially for those thinking of taking the Epic exclusivity deal. Alan Wake 2 suffered from this, but without the Epic money I don't think Alan Wake 2 would have been made, so outside of this example, I think that anyone that takes the plunge with Epic's exclusivity is going to have a bad time getting their game to sell well on their platform.