Epic Games Launcher preview arrives - Native Linux support, Fortnite for Linux is coming and upgraded Easy Anti-Cheat

Submitted ⁨⁨14⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago⁩ by ⁨ampersandrew@lemmy.world⁩ to ⁨games@lemmy.world⁩

https://www.gamingonlinux.com/2026/10/epic-games-launcher-preview-arrives-native-linux-support-fortnite-for-linux-is-coming-and-upgraded-easy-anti-cheat/

As always, more nuance is inside, but some major bullet points:

native Linux support for the launcher
very openly vibe coded, if that’s a line in the sand for you
Fortnite will be, but is not yet, updated with a new version of Easy Anti Cheat to be compatible with Linux. Yes, there are versions of EAC compatible with Linux today, but not up to Epic’s standards of cheat prevention, and whatever is up to their standards requires coordination with distro maintainers.
their FAQ openly mentions the necessity of compatibility layers, but I don’t see any mention of native integration with them

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Comments

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ryper@lemmy.ca ⁨13⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
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.

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- Quetzalcutlass@lemmy.world ⁨13⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
  Vibe-coding a program that manages and deletes massive amounts of files, what could possibly go wrong?
  
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  - Kirp123@lemmy.world ⁨12⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
    Also handles payment information. Oh boy.
    
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  - xilophor@lemmy.world ⁨10⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
    nothing could possibly go wrong
    
    GH Issue Link if you don’t want/have time to watch the video
    
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- FearMeAndDecay@literature.cafe ⁨13⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
  I thought you were jokingly rephrasing a quote, but no that’s actually the very first paragraph jfc
  
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- emb@lemmy.world ⁨13⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
  I understand that LLMs are useful tools for programming, that they churn stuff out fast and whatever.
  
  But I so hate this anti-intellectual, exuberant embrace of ignorance. It’s one thing to vibecode out of necessity (those single dev slop projects), or to say you’re doing agentic engineering or whatever cleanup label, but it’s so frustrating for them to purely vibecode and not even try to hide it. And then to expect us to think it’s cute.
  
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  - ExperiencedWinter@lemmy.world ⁨12⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
    This behavior is unfortunately normal for epic, this is the same company that said their competitors giving users more information about what they are buying “irresponsible” tomshardware.com/…/epic-boss-tim-sweeney-blasts-s…
    
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- Solrac@lemmy.world ⁨3⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
  That’s such a Tim Sweeney move
  
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- TeaWithDani@lemmy.world ⁨12⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
  That is such a whiplash from the culture of engineering excellence Epic was known for.
  
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  - rtxn@lemmy.world ⁨12⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
    Tim has been on the sauce for a while. He basically does the opposite of everything Valve does. Valve banned blockchain-based games, Epic opened the platform to scams with asset flip “games” attached. Valve regulated AI and required disclosure, Epic is now a safe haven for shovelware and Tim is screaming into the void that publishers should be allowed to hide AI usage.
    
    Sweeney is like the Shadiversity of gaming. Massively overcompensating for his inferiority complex and forever doomed to live in the shadow of his more successful brother.
    
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iuseasahibtw@ani.social ⁨2⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
Native Linux support doesn’t mean support for all distros. Wine is still your best bet.

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ryper@lemmy.ca ⁨10⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
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

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missingno@fedia.io ⁨14⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
After years and years of Tim Sweeney shitting on Linux, he actually came crawling back.

Too little too late though, you burned every bridge.

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- Quetzalcutlass@lemmy.world ⁨14⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
  He’s not just crawling back, he’s actively trying to ruin Linux by introducing kernel-level spyware.
  
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  - ampersandrew@lemmy.world ⁨14⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
    I’m definitely not an expert, but it looks like the only software that they’re looking to implement above and beyond what comes with your distro is that systemd module, so I think that anti-cheat hook is what we’ll have to look out for. It ought to be pretty obvious when it’s about to happen, since I think that will be the only time you install a game from a game launcher and get prompted for an admin password for installation.
    
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  - False@lemmy.world ⁨13⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
    That actually all looks pretty reasonable for what they’re trying to do. There’s very little novel there, they’re mostly leveraging existing security features
    
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Joelk111@lemmy.world ⁨5⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
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.

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- Bakkoda@lemmy.world ⁨4⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
  This isn’t how you do it. Compromising an OS with kernel level anti cheat isn’t the compromise I’m willing to make just to get some gamers to switch off a terrible OS.
  
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  - Joelk111@lemmy.world ⁨4⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
    That’s really fair. I forget that anticheats are kernel level I guess, as it makes no damn sense. Hopefully, as the other reply to my comment mentioned, it’s not kernel level.
    
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- PattyMcB@lemmy.world ⁨3⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
  I don’t want people that switch for this reason on Linux. Why do you think Windows sucks? Lowest. Common. Denominator.
  
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  - Joelk111@lemmy.world ⁨3⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
    That switch for what reason? They can do what they want with their PC, like play a game? Being able to do what I want with my PC is the main reason I switched to Linux.
    
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  - ampersandrew@lemmy.world ⁨3⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
    Windows sucks because the company that makes it is betting you won’t leave, and they keep stuffing it full of other revenue streams and ads for them even though the OS isn’t even free. I’m no fan of kernel anti-cheat, but incompatibility with games that use it is a huge barrier for people switching that would otherwise choose to.
    
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- BobDendry@masto.fediverse.games ⁨5⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
  I'm not 100% read up on this but I'm cautiously optimistic that this doesn't seem all that bad. It's not kernel-level but appears good enough that it will have similar performance in detecting cheats.
  Also seems like it should be fairly widely compatible. The bazzite team have already said they believe they should be compliant or have a clear path to being compliant.
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kahjtheundedicated@lemmy.world ⁨13⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
Image

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

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- Quetzalcutlass@lemmy.world ⁨13⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
  They swapped from one game you’ve probably heard of to two obscure indie games each week a while back, but yeah it’s still going on. They’re almost all forgettable outside of December (when they give out one game a day for the Advent calendar and a AAA game for Christmas).
  
  They also have a rotation of three free developer assets every few weeks. Many of those are licensed for use in any engine so it’s a good resource for game developers.
  
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- ampersandrew@lemmy.world ⁨13⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
  They still do it, but it’s far less likely to be a game you’ve heard of and would have been willing to spend money on in the first place.
  
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Duamerthrax@lemmy.world ⁨4⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
Ew. Time to switch to BSD.

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Crozekiel@lemmy.zip ⁨7⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

requires coordination with distro maintainers

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

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Malica@lemmy.zip ⁨7⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
Ew epic games

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rustbuckett@programming.dev ⁨4⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
Holy shit! This is great news! My wife will be so excited!

Now if we could just get CoD.

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Quazatron@lemmy.world ⁨12⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
Nuke it from orbit.

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Ertain@feddit.online ⁨13⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
Looks promising. Now if only they could bring Rocket League back to Linux natively.

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justdaveisfine@piefed.social ⁨14⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
I wonder if it can install/manage Unreal Engine yet. I don’t see anything mentioning it specifically so I’d presume not.

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- TeaWithDani@lemmy.world ⁨12⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
  Doubt it, the official “package” is just the entire file and you boot the “exe” with a command line prompt.
  
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xnx@piefed.social ⁨10⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
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

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- yukichigai@kbin.earth ⁨9⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
  The beta launcher has a bunch of features disabled/absent compared to the main launcher, not the least being the shopping cart. Not surprising that it would load faster when it has less to do.
  
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