Epic Games Store will undergo a major code rewrite this summer, promising faster performance, improved stability, and new community features including voice chat and friend groups, as it continues to close the gap with Steam.
The Epic Games Store is set for a significant transformation in 2026, with Epic Games announcing plans to rewrite most of the platform's code to address long-standing performance issues and add features that have made Steam the dominant force in PC gaming distribution.
Breaking Records But Falling Short
In 2025, the Epic Games Store achieved several milestones, logging 78 million monthly active users and generating over $400 million in sales of third-party games (excluding Fortnite revenue). Players spent a staggering 2.78 billion hours playing third-party titles, with the platform's weekly free game offerings likely contributing significantly to these numbers.
Despite this growth, the Epic Games Store still lags behind Steam in multiple critical areas. Beyond revenue and player count disparities, the platform has faced criticism for its software quality. Users have reported that the Epic Games Store consumes more system resources than Steam, responds more slowly to mouse clicks, and lacks many convenience features that have become standard in modern game launchers.
Performance Overhaul Coming This Summer
Epic Games has acknowledged these shortcomings and is taking decisive action. Starting this summer, the company will begin rolling out a major code rewrite that promises to address the platform's performance issues head-on. The revamped Epic Games Store is expected to:
- Respond much faster to user inputs
- Load significantly quicker
- Offer improved overall stability
- Consume fewer system resources
This fundamental rewrite represents Epic's most aggressive move yet to close the performance gap with Steam, which has long been praised for its responsiveness and efficiency.
Copying Steam's Winning Formula
Beyond performance improvements, Epic Games is planning to implement several community features that have made Steam the go-to platform for PC gamers. The most notable additions include:
Enhanced User Profiles
Players will soon be able to create more meaningful profiles, complete with customizable avatars. This feature has been a cornerstone of Steam's social experience, allowing gamers to express their identity and showcase their gaming achievements.
Platform-Wide Voice Chat
Perhaps the most significant addition is platform-wide voice chat functionality. Unlike game-specific voice systems, this chat will work regardless of what games participants are playing (or even if they're not playing games at all). This mirrors Steam's successful voice chat implementation, which has become a key feature for coordinating with friends across different gaming sessions.
Friend Groups
Scheduled for introduction in the second quarter of 2026, "friend groups" will allow players to organize their connections into meaningful categories. This feature, similar to Steam's group system, enables better management of large friend lists and facilitates community building around shared interests.
Cross-Platform Play Purchasing
In a move that could significantly impact mobile gaming, Epic Games plans to introduce a system where games available on both smartphones and PCs can be purchased once and played on both platforms. This cross-buy functionality addresses one of the major pain points in mobile gaming, where players often have to purchase the same game multiple times for different devices.
The Competitive Landscape
The Epic Games Store's evolution reflects the intensifying competition in the PC gaming distribution market. While Steam maintains its dominant position with years of refinement and a massive library of features, Epic's aggressive approach—combining exclusive titles, free weekly games, and now substantial platform improvements—continues to chip away at Valve's market share.
These changes suggest that Epic Games is no longer content with being a "good enough" alternative to Steam. Instead, the company appears committed to creating a platform that can genuinely compete on both features and performance, potentially forcing Valve to continue innovating to maintain its lead.
What This Means for Gamers
For PC gamers, these changes promise a more polished and feature-rich experience on the Epic Games Store. The performance improvements alone could make the platform more appealing to users who have avoided it due to technical issues. The addition of Steam-like social features could also make it easier for friends to coordinate gaming sessions across different titles.
However, the success of these changes will ultimately depend on execution. A code rewrite of this scale carries risks, and Epic Games will need to ensure that the transition doesn't introduce new bugs or stability issues. Additionally, features like voice chat and friend groups will only be valuable if they're implemented with the same attention to detail that has made Steam's versions so popular.
The coming months will be crucial as Epic Games begins rolling out these changes. If successful, 2026 could mark the year the Epic Games Store truly comes into its own as a legitimate competitor to Steam, rather than just an alternative with exclusive titles.
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