Epic Games is preparing a revamp of the Epic Games Store that the company says will cut launch times by up to a factor of five, TechPowerUp reported. The 5x claim, tied to Epic's own announcement of the storefront overhaul, sets a measurable performance target for the client at the center of the company's contest with Valve's Steam.

What's behind the 5x figure?

The headline number lands on a long-standing friction point. The Epic Games Store launched in December 2018 with a weekly free-games program and aggressive timed exclusives as the core acquisition tools, but the desktop client has historically taken noticeably longer than Steam to reach its main interface on cold start. Closing that gap would address one of the most-cited criticisms of the storefront since launch.

What changes for studios and players?

For developers shipping through the Epic Games Store, faster client boot times do not directly change revenue mechanics. Engine integration, SDK updates, and store-feature parity remain the variables that move conversions. A snappier launcher, however, addresses a day-to-day usability factor that influences whether players keep the client installed between major purchases — a retention variable that affects how often they encounter Epic's curated storefront, free-game promotions, and editorial surfacing.

The competitive backdrop is denser than it was in 2018. Valve's Steam remains the dominant PC marketplace by revenue and concurrent users. Riot Games has expanded the Riot Client beyond League of Legends into broader game distribution. Amazon, Microsoft, and indie-leaning storefronts such as Itch.io continue to compete for visibility. A faster Epic client narrows one of the storefront's most quantifiable disadvantages against that field.

What remains undisclosed?

TechPowerUp's reporting did not enumerate the engineering changes Epic plans to make, identify which versions of the client will receive the update first, or specify a release date. Epic has not, in this report, provided benchmarks that would let third parties verify the 5x claim against current performance on comparable hardware.

What to watch next

The rollout cadence is the first signal worth tracking. If Epic publishes technical notes alongside the client update — detailing whether the gains come from dependency loading, background services, UI initialization, or a backend shift — developers and players will be able to test the claim directly. The other variable is platform parity: whether the revamp ships to macOS and Linux at the same time as Windows, or whether the Epic Games Store's historical lag on those platforms is preserved.

A free-game promotion timed to the revamp would also be consistent with Epic's established playbook, which has used exclusive releases and giveaways to drive client installs since 2018. Studios with Epic Store exclusivity contracts expiring in 2026 may want to monitor whether any revamp-related changes to featured placement or default surfacing show up in updated documentation.