Apparently it's vibe coded. From their announcement:

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 OP acknowledges the vibe coding, but the opening from Epic's announcement is worth quoting:

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.

It's like they're saying "Our launcher sucks and we couldn't fix it, so we used AI to make a new one". Other companies have been able to make good launchers without AI, but Epic just couldn't do it.

RPS's article has the most accurate title: "We vibe coded a new Epic Games Launcher" because "programming is hard", announce company we're somehow supposed to see as a serious Steam competitor

Idk if epic is still doing that, but this image has been sitting on my phone for like 7 years

"if that's a line in the sand for you"

Given I'm hearing instances of vibe coded software completely deleting a drive as a way to efficiently uninstall it...it really should be a hard line in the sand for most people. If programming is so hard they can't do it, how can we reasonably trust that the software will be robust? Why would I want to trust it at all?

After years and years of Tim Sweeney shitting on Linux, he actually came crawling back.

Too little too late though, you burned every bridge.

Native Linux support doesn't mean support for all distros. Wine is still your best bet.

requires coordination with distro maintainers

Which I really hope they just don't get. Fuck Epic and fuck Tim Sweeney.

We got Epic Games Launcher on Linux before GTA 6.

Nuke it from orbit.

Ew epic games

Looks promising. Now if only they could bring Rocket League back to Linux natively.

Ew. Time to switch to BSD.

I wonder if it can install/manage Unreal Engine yet. I don't see anything mentioning it specifically so I'd presume not.

Please vibe code the anti cheat. Wanna see it fall so badly

Tried it and I’m surprised how much faster it is and how it now automatically shows all my Steam games. Still hoping Steam gets a redesign so the friends list isn’ta separate window

Maybe I'm being dumb, but why would I use this over Heroic? Is it meant to be a Heroic replacement or just the "official" client? Genuine question

To all the people saying they hope this doesn't work out, do yah want more people on Linux or not? For some, Fortnite will be the killer game that they have to stay on Windows for.

I'm sure I'll get shredded for this, but I don't understand what everyone is so mad about. This is a net good thing that will raise Linux awareness and adoption. You don't have to install the Epic Launcher or Fortnite and its anticheat if you don't want to. And if you're worried about the kernel level change - if that is what's required - then compile your kernel without it. Or don't load the module if that's how it's implemented. And "working with distributions" doesn't even make sense. The kernel is the kernel. I know there are variations, but that does not a distribution make. If you don't want the change, fork it and remove it. Or just use the fork where some one else did it for you. This is the whole point of Linux. It belongs to all of us and for each of us to the way we want.

Thanks for coming to my TED talk.

Holy shit! This is great news! My wife will be so excited!

Now if we could just get CoD.

2 weeks later: "Epic Games is filing for bankruptcy after blowing all its cash on vibe coding and a marketing campaign for its new launcher"

Lol they are going hard on social media comparing how they are faster than Steam, but the new launcher they are boasting about doesn't even have feature parity with their own old launcher never mind feature parity with Steam.

Way to bury the lede: it's "vibe coded". 🤢

upgraded Easy Anti-Cheat

It's been expelled to the fires of Hell where it belongs?

Who the fuck is going to play Fortnite on Linux?

Even though I don't use Epic Games/play games with anticheat, I'm pretty excited about this. If Fortnite finds success with an anticheat on Linux, there's a good chance that other major players will follow suit. The #1 reason to not switch to Linux I have seen from gamers is that they can't play multiplayer games that require anticheat, and a ton of them use Fortnite as an example.

Programming is hard. So, instead of doing that, we vibe coded a new Epic Games Launcher

Is it april fools day?

I see no reason to switch from Heroic Launcher

Fortnite is deteriorating so fast (code base crumbling, user base cheating more and more unhindered) they need to push the wreck into every household they can reach before everything combusts and crashes.

Not a fan of epic and would never use their store. But if you are, you can try this