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A Rosier Future for Linux Gamers? Epic Games Announces Linux Version of Its Storefront (pcguide.com) 47

Posted by EditorDavid from the game-on dept.
"Epic Games has confirmed that it is working on a Linux version of its storefront, potentially removing the need for third-party launchers on platforms such as Steam Deck," reports PC Guide: The confirmation came during an Ask Me Anything (AMA) on the Epic Games Store's community Discord server. When a user asked whether Epic had any plans for a Linux version of its launcher, an Epic staff member confirmed that it is coming "soon(TM)" in emoji form. Of course, that is far from confirming any kind of date, but it is official confirmation of a Linux version nonetheless.
"On top of that, Nvidia's GeForce Now [cloud gaming] app for Linux is also official, having emerged from beta," writes TechRadar, calling it all part of "a rosier future for Linux gamers." And while it's not related to gaming, OpenAI's ["preview"] release of a ChatGPT app for Linux is another milestone for the platform... OpenAI said: "Linux has been one of the most-requested platforms for the desktop app, and this launch extends ChatGPT and Codex across every major desktop operating system." The Epic Games Store arriving natively is great news for gamers running Linux — including SteamOS — as it means a much more convenient way of playing games from the store, as opposed to the current situation with fudging and workarounds (using a third-party app such as the Heroic Games Launcher)...

Epic's own Fortnite doesn't work on Linux (and that's down to Epic actively blocking the game from running due to issues around cheating, which remains a source of controversy). Given the apparent changing attitude here with its launcher being ported over, maybe Epic will reverse course on Fortnite eventually. Some gamers on Reddit are highly skeptical about that possibility though, and as one doubting Redditor put it: "I wouldn't hold my breath."

A Rosier Future for Linux Gamers? Epic Games Announces Linux Version of Its Storefront More | Reply

A Rosier Future for Linux Gamers? Epic Games Announces Linux Version of Its Storefront

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  • Are you fuckin ready?

    • I've been ready every year since 1997. This year will be the year, boys. Go get 'em.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Z80a ( 971949 )

      Most people don't even know what an OS is and that it can be replaced.
      But i don't doubt it is basically already the year of linux (for those that know what an OS is)

  • There's no mention of them delivering the native linux versions of games that have it is there? They just want to get on the steam decks/steam machines where there's a working Wine.

    By the way, has the Epic store discovered the shopping cart yet?

    • So long as they say plays on Linux, be that wine or native, it puts some "supported"-like element into it. I think that's really what matters as it makes people a bit more confident in using Linux as a daily OS.

      Which is good as it has better everything.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by allo ( 1728082 )

      If the storefront is there, more developers think about releasing Linux builds.

      • Why would developers care about a completely underperforming store front with a small user base? I don't thing EGS Linux support will influence a single developer. Not one. There's a bigger store with wide spread Linux compatibility.

      • Yep. Honestly native builds are what I really need to switch. I appreciate Wine and think its nice, but everything has enough little quirks and workarounds and such that I don't like using it for gaming.

        And if I'm being honest, a big enough amount of my gaming is just hearthstone as a side diversion these days that if Blizzard released it for Linux, I'd switch for my main desktop tomorrow.

        As it is I just keep 2 machines on a KVM. Windows when I'm gaming, Linux when I'm not.

    • I couldn't care less because Linux native versions are problematic. I hope they allow us to install and choose from various Proton versions like Steam does. I usually try them, about half the time they malfunction. I then install the Windows version with a good Proton and everything works great. Just went through this with The Long Dark. I have pipewire+wireplumber and everything else works wonderfully. I have tested all of the APIs and they all work including ALSA and JACK. But for some reason the linux v

    • By the way, has the Epic store discovered the shopping cart yet?

      I think so. Also it is supposed to have user reviews. People have wondered why it took so long. From what I have been told, the main architectural issue is that the current storefront/launcher is a modified version of Unreal Engine. That engine is designed for games and not ideal for storefronts. Modifying further to be a better storefront would have taken a lot of work. The new storefront is basically written from scratch from what I have been told. Thus they could write a Linux version.

  • Which Epic games is that? (Score:5, Interesting)

    by thegarbz ( 1787294 ) on Monday August 17, 2026 @03:19AM (#66292292)

    Is that the same Epic games that bought Rocket League and then proceeded abandon the native Linux version leaving people who have paid for and happily played the game for years under Linux unable to do so despite the game still being fully supported?

    Is it the Epic games who used to release a Linux build of Unreal tournament only to drop support for that?

    Or is that the Epic games which manages one of the most popular games on the planet, Fortnite which supports Windows, MacOs, Android, iOs, PS, Xbox and ... not Linux?

    Maybe it's the Epic games run by a CEO Tim Sweeny who publicly despises Linux?

    But maybe they've changed. They have said they will support Linux. The company which has a long long long long long list of broken promises about the Epic Games Store, such as friends chat (promised 5 years ago), user reviews (on the roadmap since 2019), forums (on the roadmap since 2019), and unified mod support (implemented so half arsed that no developer bothered) will totally pinkie swear that this time you can trust them when they say something like they will support Linux.

    I'm sure they'll get around to it just after they finish building the fast and efficient Epic Games Store *rolleyes*, you know, because according to Tim Sweeney Steam was bloated and slow ... only for EGS to take up a shitton of more resources and end up being the most resource hogging launcher on Windows.

    They do have one thing going for them, being a shitty electron overlay to a web interface it should be trivial to support EGS on Linux, for all the people who love the native game compatibility and GPU driver support of Linux but really miss the bloated shit of Windows, it'll be the perfect store.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

      I find it interesting that in the end it was for-profit businesses that helped Linux hit the mainstream.

      Valve with Proton and SteamOS/Steam Deck. Framework and System76.

      Let's not forget AI either, which overcame the hostile community and outdated information problems.

      As much as I love open source software, it seems like it will only ever be niche until someone figured out a way to make money from it.

      • I find it interesting that in the end it was for-profit businesses that helped Linux hit the mainstream.

        It's inevitable under capitalism.

        As much as I love open source software, it seems like it will only ever be niche until someone figured out a way to make money from it.

        People need to pay their rent.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by tlhIngan ( 30335 )

        I find it interesting that in the end it was for-profit businesses that helped Linux hit the mainstream.

        What do you mean? Because this has always been the case. Most of the kernel developers work for for-profit companies - some of the biggest kernel contributors include companies like Microsoft, Intel, AMD, Nvidia and others.

        Many projects are sponsored by companies like RedHat (now IBM, but IBM did a lot before acquiring RedHat).

        There are for-profit Linux distributions as well - Canonical for example has Ub

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

          Sure, but as a consumer OS, used by ordinary non-technical people who just want to play games or browse the web, that's new.

      • As much as I love open source software, it seems like it will only ever be niche until someone figured out a way to make money from it.

        Depends on what you call "niche". Linux has been huge in servers and HPC for decades while Windows has been steadily losing ground. User facing applications like SteamOS is now starting to gain some growth.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by Tailhook ( 98486 )

        I find it interesting that in the end it was for-profit businesses

        Valve with Proton and SteamOS/Steam Deck. Framework and System76.

        The success of Linux has owed a great deal to for-profit businesses for a long time now, way before Valve and Framework came along. Oracle, in 1998, porting their bread-and-butter database to Linux as a fully supported tier 1 platform, was a monumental moment. Then IBM got on board with major investments to bring Linux to their mainframes. Then Google, adopting Linux for their Android platform, in 2007-2008. Before all of those, there were countless ISPs standing up Linux on their low cost hardware to s

      • Open source software a niche? What are you talking about? Linux is the overwhelming majority of the backend of the Internet. Just because consumers, who don't even know what an OS is, don't realize they have a choice doesn't really matter.

        Linux can easily stay the nerd OS and everything will be just fine.

        Linux doesn't actually NEED to even have a YOTLD. In fact, I think we would be better off without it. When everyone does discover Linux, it will be time to move over to BSD.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by gweihir ( 88907 )

      This is the Epic games that needs to see a business opportunity. Having or not having the Linux gamers is a profit factor, especially as Windows systems with good gaming performance seem to slowly go out of reach for many people.

      They do not care bout Linux because it is Linux. They do care about selling stuff and not being present on Linux means 5% lost sales or so.

      • They do care about selling stuff and not being present on Linux means 5% lost sales or so.

        Maybe this is a reflection that their strategy of attempting to buy their way into the market by burning billions offering free stuff instead of making a compelling product has failed. I hope so. God knows they've promised so much about the EGS and delivered so little to date.

    • Epic added a Linux build target to Unreal Engine 4.1 in 2014. And since UE5 in 2020 the entire development toolchain has been feature complete in Linux. Meaning you could make your Unreal game on Linux and then release it natively for Linux (and Windows/consoles/mobile devices/etc).

      So while Epic has not been the best supporter of Linux, they have not been ignoring it, either. The core engine is ready. What's left is that the anti-cheat software (Easy Anti-Cheat) and the store need to catch up.

      Epic looks to [xda-developers.com]

      • Do not confuse the Epic responsible for the games and the store (a true piece of shit company) with the Epic responsible for Unreal Engine. It's like chalk and cheese.

        I'm sure the only reason Unreal Engine has Linux as a build target is because Sweeney and the rest of the amoebas working at Epic Games don't know about it.

        and this latest announcement indicates that they're working on getting EGS running as well.

        Well given that EGS is an electron app I'm sure they could throw 5 tokens at Claude and have it done in their coffee break. I won't hold my breath for actual Linux support for the store or

  • EPIC is hypocritical (Score:3)

    by xack ( 5304745 ) on Monday August 17, 2026 @03:21AM (#66292294)
    They say they want alternate app stores on iOS, Android and game consoles yet when there is a real alternative that's already available they say "oh no people will cheat". Make up your mind, either you want alternatives or not and release Fortnite on Linux if you really believe in freedom.

  • Why is there a need for a 'Linux' storefront. The front-end should be web and OS neutral. Just sell, AND SUPPORT, for more than a week, something. Epic will spout shit and go on their merry way happily fsck'n customers, just as always.

    • Why is there a need for a 'Linux' storefront. The front-end should be web and OS neutral.

      We have moved far beyond "store-front". Modern gaming platforms like Steam or EGS are expected to support a wide variety of in game things including matchmaking (implies external friends list, which implies a social media structure like chat, ideally as an overlay so it can be accessed from within the game) along side a world of other management tasks, such as mod management, update management, achievement management, and that's before you look at things like providing a universal input API to expand hardwa

      • Their damn Electron powered shitshow is an insane resource hog sitting in the background of a gaming session.

        Steam is basically the same shit. It's a dog. It's full of web pages. Start time is very long and performance of the store (which is all web pages) is very bad.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by Archfeld ( 6757 )

        All crap I do not want. The .exe installer for my game please. Game spy did it right as far a match making goes. I don't buy on Steam, and I don't use GoG's Galaxy. I don't care about Achievements, and if you are into Mod'n a game you should be able to figure out how to load and manage them. I write DOOM2 maps and I can do that just fine without Bethesda. An online server multiplayer game should handle client side issues itself. All the crap you are pushing is just more info for someone to cache about yo

    • Re: (Score:3)

      by mjwx ( 966435 )

      Why is there a need for a 'Linux' storefront. The front-end should be web and OS neutral. Just sell, AND SUPPORT, for more than a week, something. Epic will spout shit and go on their merry way happily fsck'n customers, just as always.

      When it comes to platforms like Steam or GOG Galaxy they're a lot more than storefronts. You can almost turn it off entirely in steam and it's almost hidden by default in GOG as I've never even gone into it by accident whilst randomly clicking on shit. It's the other functionality like patching, updating, verifying and managing local files that is quite difficult to do on the web.

      When buying from Steam or GOG I always use the web from a different device because I tend to treat my gaming computer as suspe

    • The front-end should be web and OS neutral.

      How would a web interface know which games you have installed on your machine? How would a web interface know which games need an update because the developer issued patches? The web interface would only know which games are in your library not what is on your machine specifically. Personally, I do not install every single game I own on my machine.. That's just one reason why a web only front-end does not work very well in this case.

    • It's not really just a storefront. These are usually a launcher and installer/updater as well.

  • Now i can never play freely played epic games on linux as well!

  • It has been a long long time that Epic was anything like what they were during the heydays of Unreal - actually epic.
    We already got proton and steam, we dont need more launchers.. go home Tim.

  • Good (Score:2)

    by Jethro ( 14165 )

    I've never been able to get Lutris to work correctly, and while I've managed to wrestle Heroic Launcher into working, the ui/ux is so horrible and unintuitive that I'd just rather not use it.

    • Older versions of Lutris were real slow and seemed to require a lot of stopping and starting but it started working well for me somewhere along the line and I installed a bunch of games from EA and GOG. As far as manual intervention I mostly just needed to get better versions of wine and proton, Lutris seems to use pretty old versions. My favorite proton right now is dwproton.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by Jethro ( 14165 )

        I've tried Lutris as recently as last month. Clunky as hell and ended up not working. Heroic is also clunky, but hey, it works. Which is basically how I'd describe gaming on Linux in general, but it does keep improving.

  • This is probably a low-cost effort, but it means there is management attention. The 4% Linux gamers on Steam are not nothing. I guess they are looking at things like RAM cost, the irrational Win11 system requirements, the started de-Microsoftization in Europe, etc..

  • China's Tencent is their biggest investor, and Tencent sucks giant donkey balls.
    Unreal Engine has become an over complicated, buggy piece of shit.
    Epic's launcher, on the platforms is does support, performs like shit.
    Fortnite is a trash game for trash people.

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