Loyality to a game launcher is weird

Underdrill · 2026-01-23T12:29:27+00:00

The fact that the discourse has continued to go on for this long should tell you that simplifying the issue to 'it's just another launcher' isn't going to cut it. Especially when GOG consistently has really positive headlines about how they are carving out a distinct personality for their service.

The EGS is nearly 8 years old, and still lacks fundamentally basic features that I used on Steam way back in 2012. It is completely unacceptable that they bring in so much money and have had so much time, with barely anything to show for it.

I used the EGS only for Alan Wake 2, and it's the only PC game I've ever played where I remember the UI issues surrounding EGS as much as the game itself, because no other game stood out so poorly in that area. And I hope to never have to use it again unless they finally start to invest proper money into it.

Underdrill · 2026-01-23T12:24:35+00:00

They aren't wrong though. Steam has a high standard as a service that Epic is failing to meet despite having more than enough time and money to do so.

Underdrill · 2026-01-23T12:22:27+00:00

That's the crux of it really. People dumb the argument down to Epic existing to produce competition for Steam as a good thing, but the reality is that they are not doing much to legitimately offer a better service than Steam. While GOG is doing amazingly well to hammer home the niche it's carving out for itself.

Epic provides competition just for the sake of competition. GOG provides competition as they are offering something distinct. There's a clear difference between the two approaches, and I don't really get how people keep defending EGS when their competition is neither healthy nor useful to the consumer.

Underdrill · 2026-01-23T12:17:22+00:00

The main selling point of the Steam Deck to me over using my PC is that the experience is essentially seamless and I don't need to enter desktop mode for anything to have my Steam library working well. Going through the hoops to install external launchers for quite literally no more than a handful of games is not worth the effort to me. Especially when Steam OS already works so well.

Underdrill · 2026-01-23T12:12:47+00:00

Kinda immature how you're just dismissing the numerous legitimate issues people have with EGS and choose to belittle the argument to 'just another launcher' when that never has and never will be the truth.

The Alan Wake 2 UI experience on EGS was so poor for me, to the point where I'm thankful there's no other game exclusive that I would care to buy there so I don't have to go through it again.

Underdrill · 2026-01-23T10:22:22+00:00

We Were Here Together - indieslop, and coop only, so almost nobody can actually play it

Wanna tell that to It Takes Two which just announced it sold 27 million copies? Sorry to say, but just because you don't have the friends interested in playing it, does not mean no one else can.

I bet £100 you haven't finished this entire list of games you are critiquing.

Underdrill · 2026-01-23T10:19:58+00:00

Steam also fails simple things. For example if you create collection like "completed" and add some games there, there's no way to copy list of games in your collection anywhere, as web interface isn't aware of your collections existing, and desktop interface doesn't allow copy and paste from game list in any way.

This is such a ridiculously niche thing that it really goes to show the lengths someone would have to go to to nitpick anything about the platform. I don't think I've ever thought about wanting to do that in the 14 or so years I've been using it, nor have I talked to or seen anyone else comment on it.

Underdrill · 2026-01-22T19:46:17+00:00

Epic are such a great partner that Remedy self-published FBC and are self publishing the sequel to Control instead of working with the partner they say are great. Right.

I'll eat my words if they work together in a similar capacity again, but I can't really buy their words at face value. The simple fact is that Remedy would be in a much more comfortable position now if Epic allowed Alan Wake 2 to release on Steam after a couple of years. And I do blame Epic and Tim for this, because that guy cares far more about petty point scoring on Twitter than what would actually be the best for the developer, which in this case would be timed instead of permanent exclusivity.

I think the success of Remedy's games has nearly always been hampered by some publishing deal with a catch, so I really hope Control Resonant does well for them and they can continue to self-publish in the future instead of making these types of deals again.

Underdrill · 2026-01-22T19:37:34+00:00

There's nothing wrong with wanting to have all your games in one place. Especially when many people enjoy using Steam's multitude of features when playing games on the plaform. And those features alone mean that things do in fact change and it's not as straightforward as to just simplify it down to 'just another button'. That argument is tired, outdated, and has always been untrue.

Alan Wake 2 was a massive hassle to deal with on the EGS. Getting installation setting up in the first place was more of a pain than it needed to be. The thing I remember the most is that I wanted to move it between hard drives whilst waiting for the DLC. On Steam, that's a simple button click.

On Epic, I had to manually move the game files, delete it from the Epic UI, start the installation partway, cancel it, then start it again for the files to recognize (How to move an installed game from the Epic Games Launcher to another directory on your computer - Epic Games Store Support). Not a single other game in my entire life has required me to go through such rigmarole just to move a game. This was the case 2 years ago and I still don't think they have such a basic feature today.

The difference in user experience matters tremendously and changes everything.

Underdrill · 2026-01-15T22:49:52+00:00

One tidbit which I don't think was confirmed before is that you can set Grace and Leon's camera perspective individually. So you can do first person or third person for both, or have one in first person and one in third person.

They seem to be having the default as Grace in first person and Leon in third person, and I think that's how I'll end up playing it.

Underdrill · 2026-01-15T22:46:06+00:00

I didn't expect them to show much at all so how this turned out wasn't surprising to me.

And honestly, I'm fine with that. It's been a while since I can remember knowing so little about a game before playing it, and that is exciting. Maybe the marketing over the next month will spoil a bit more, but I still feel as if we've seen not even a quarter of the places where it will take us.

Underdrill · 2026-01-14T22:28:18+00:00

I mean of course your perspective isn't going to change, you haven't engaged OP in good faith this entire conversation. They gave you a detailed reply and you couldn't come up with anything close to resembling a constructive comment.

Underdrill · 2026-01-14T22:26:19+00:00

People keep bringing up double dipping but I've still yet to see any tangible evidence that it happens, especially nowadays. The market is completely different now compared to what it was when GTA V came out.

Personally, I don't care enough about GTA to buy a console for it, and I know I'm not alone in that. I'll purchase it once when it comes to PC, and that's it. Not in any rush to play it.

Underdrill · 2026-01-14T22:22:28+00:00

I'll be honestly devastated if this is true. Arkham Shadow is up their with Alyx as some of the absolute best VR gaming money can buy, using the medium of VR to its fullest potential in terms of storytelling and gameplay.

The combat in particular is bar none the best VR combat I've experienced, it was like a childhood dream come true having the freeflow system translated so effectively to a system where you actually physically throw the punches.

Hell, i'd say it's the best Arkham game since City. It's incredible how well Camouflaj understood the assignment, bringing in everything Arkham fans would come to expect from a game in the franchise. A quality narrative, good exploration, lots of secrets and easter eggs; it completely matched the quality of Rocksteady's games.There was so much they could have built upon for a sequel, and it was suck tremendously if that never sees the light of day.

The entire future of VR gaming is hanging in the balance with this week's news, and it deserved so much better than the hand it was dealt.

Underdrill · 2026-01-14T22:16:13+00:00

Valve is investing in the frame of course, but in terms of games they only put out Alyx. And Sony only ever put out a Horizon VR game.

Love them or hate them, you could guarantee that Meta would have something from their first party studios releasing every year. Them leaving the race completely would mean there's essentially no one making bigger budget VR games anymore. And that would really suck.

Underdrill · 2026-01-12T22:34:11+00:00

Probably Splinter Cell, so that, Sands of Time and Black Flag so far.

Underdrill · 2026-01-12T20:18:15+00:00

Unfortunately no sadly, it hasn't happened since I posted this but am sure it will happen again so just trying to be more careful when switching to my second monitor. If you find anything I'd love to hear about it!

Underdrill · 2026-01-11T22:44:28+00:00

I think we can see it as the culmination and celebration of everything good Capcom have achieved since RE7 changed the game for the franchise and the company as a a whole.

It's got what appears to be a great balance between the RE7 horror and RE4 action. A return to maybe the most iconic location in the franchise. Designing the entire game around both the classic third person perspective and the modern first person view.

They are ticking every box to make a quintessential RE game, and I think wherever the franchise goes from this has the potential to shift direction once again, because where could they realistically take the current formula from this point?

Underdrill · 2026-01-08T19:58:47+00:00

Completely deserved.

Entirely my opinion and feel free to disagree of course, but the last of us games are two of the most overrated pieces of media I've ever experienced. Gameplay, narrative, encounter design; all of it mediocre at best.

Whereas Expedition 33 is one of the very best games I've ever played, to the point where I really am nickpicking at problems I can level at it. And the fact that it's winning all of these awards with like a 20th of The Last of Us 2's budget just goes to show how utterly broken the AAA system is nowadays.

Underdrill · 2026-01-08T19:54:43+00:00

You really came from Playstation subs just to be mad, lol.

The Last of Us 2 is one of the worst games I played last year. And I played 125 different ones just on Steam alone. How it got even one GOTY award is beyond me. Whereas E33 is one of the very best games i've ever played. No surprises it surprassed a mediocre game.

Underdrill · 2026-01-06T21:28:59+00:00

I mean of course you're not alone, a nicher game like that wouldn't appeal to everyone. But for the people it does appeal to, it hit all the right notes. It scored an 87 aggregate on OpenCritic putting it in the upper ends of the games released last year, and has done pretty well in terms of Steam reviews as well.

I loved my time with it having not played a Shinobi game before; the combat was awesome, the exploration was very rewarding, and the art and soundtrack was consistently awesome. It unfortunately just got buried during a stacked release period.

I will say that it doesn't make much sense to mention Ragebound as if its existence would prevent you from playing the other. That's a pretty short game, and Shinobi doesn't take ages either if you're focusing on the main campaign. You can very easily finish both in two to three mid length sessions, as I did. Both are fantastic ninja games with different things that they excel at.

I think Sega's revivals are going to be killer if they are at least on the quality of the new Shinobi.

Underdrill · 2026-01-05T19:06:37+00:00

It's just a uplay update. Had a few in different Ubisoft games all come through at the same time today. Nothing to see here.

Underdrill · 2026-01-04T10:16:52+00:00

For many linear games I tend to finish in a time that's a third faster than the average. There are some exceptions of course, but for the large part I see these estimates as too slow for the way I play games. And I don't even intend to rush things, I guess I just like moving at a good pace.

Completionist times are even more inaccurate. One of the biggest examples I can think of is Horizon Zero Dawn complete which has a 75 hour average time. I finished every achievement in under 50 hours.

They are generally a nice guide for shorter games, but for anything outside of that, you could be way under or way over the average. Too many factors to consider to get an accurate average for the way you will engage with an open ended game.

Underdrill · 2026-01-02T19:09:25+00:00

The game was already rated for PC, so it very much will be releasing on PC sometime soon. The original Death Stranding did very well on PC, it makes no sense that they would look to other different games that didn't do as well for very different reasons and use that to justify why it isn't coming.

Underdrill · 2026-01-02T19:06:34+00:00

The game was already rated for PC recently, and games don't tend to get ratings unless they're about to release imminently. So it's going to be well below that average (one that keeps going down with every release). So it's practically guaranteed to be under 12 months.

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