Following an announcement earlier this week where Epic committed to the future of AI development, Epic made two announcements today. The first is a new game launcher in preview that they proudly state they vibe coded, and the second is a comprehensive plan towards a solution for Linux anti-cheat with their games, which will help them extend Fortnite to Linux based systems. What a mixed bag!
In a blog post today, Epic outlined their new preview build of their game launcher. “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. This first release is light on features. Think of it as a speedboat and not a yacht! Though it does have advanced digital commerce technology such as a shopping cart.”
If Epic had not straight up said the client itself was vibe coded, the page itself for the refresh would have been a big flag. It has all the makers of “one of those projects” (if I see another website that has letters with a pink to blue gradient or weirdly busy code effects I’m gonna hurl).
Points for honesty I guess, but as with most communication from companies Epic’s size, gloating about not doing work does not endear me to the work even if I accept the sad reality of AI coding in these companies. Epic is not some guy on Reddit or X with a little vibe coded project, they’re a company valued in the billions, and this is kinda tacky.
Despite having many games via the Epic Store for work, I don’t actually use the Epic Game Launcher a lot, and instead I’ve opted for the Heroic Games Launcher, which unifies my Epic and GoG games under one launcher, with the option to add those games to Steam, which I actually use. But for the sake of journalism I installed their new preview client on Bazzite, which boasts Linux support. I can confirm that it booted up quickly and was a buggy mess, which makes sense given it’s a preview build of a vibe coded Linux client.
Looks good so far.
In addition to this, Epic announced something far more interesting: extending and improving Linux support of Epic’s Easy Anticheat. For people who don’t regularly game on Linux, anti-cheat is one of the biggest problems facing Linux adoption, in part because many Windows-based solutions require a kernel driver. Games can run well via Proton, but without a way to secure an anti-cheat solution, entire games remain unplayable online on Linux. Easy Anticheat has had an opt-in Linux client, but implementation has been spotty and uneven at best.
“To close the gap for Linux, we are rebuilding our Linux anti-cheat implementation into EAC Linux v2,” Epic wrote. “We will bring the level of protection much closer to par with Windows, in the very near-term, using existing Linux features including signed kernel, signed kernel modules, and secure boot with attestation. These requirements build on work that distribution maintainers already do, and the more distributions that meet these requirements by default, the fewer players will need to change their setup to play.”
The blog goes on to explain the various technologies Epic is using to achieve comprehensive anti-cheat without a kernel driver, as well as the steps they’re taking to reach out to members of the Linux community and hosting a panel with Fedora project lead Jet Spaleta. Their FAQ also mentions that while the Steam Deck does not have the required features needed to support their anticheat solution, they are actively in conversation with Valve on the topic.
Riley MacLeod
Just a reminder.
This is the kind of stuff that Epic should be spending time and resources on, instead of bragging about vibe coding a currently broken launcher. The reason why people have relatively positive feelings towards Valve is because they act like Linux developers, slowly but consistently pushing out open source quality of life features to their products without making much of a fuss. If Epic wants the same kind of goodwill Valve currently has, then they need to put the time in. And I do hope they end up focusing more on currently intractable problems in Linux instead of just bragging about how much work their agents are doing for them.
