Epic Games has released a new version of the Epic Games Launcher, its PC app for buying and playing games, in preview. It is available on Windows, Mac and, for the first time, Linux. Epic says the new launcher was “vibe coded”, a term for building software mainly by instructing AI rather than writing code by hand.
“Programming is hard,” Epic said in a blog post quoted by The Verge on 14 October 2026. “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 Epic Games Store news page lists the post as “The new Epic Games Launcher is finally here in Preview”.
How Epic used AI
Martin Keely, Epic’s vice president and general manager of the Epic Games Store and Epic Online Services, told The Verge: “We used AI as a tool for this. It’s part of our migration as a company to use AI in new and different ways.”
Keely told The Verge that AI was “super helpful” for testing and for “replicating the core functionality from the existing launcher”, and that it is also helping Epic offer the launcher on Linux. “We definitely had agents write and review all of the code,” he said. AI agents are AI tools that can carry out multi-step tasks such as writing and checking code.
Keely said people stayed in charge. According to The Verge, he said the team “managed that process” and “supervised the entirety of what we did”, and had worked on the launcher for “most of this year”. The Verge reported that the launcher team has not adopted the “no more hand-written code” approach that Bloomberg reported for another Epic project.
The old launcher remains available. Keely told The Verge that Epic has no set date for moving everyone over and will do a full launch when the new version is “stable” and matches the current launcher where needed.
Fortnite on Linux, eventually
Epic also plans to bring Fortnite to Linux through the launcher, but has no timeline. “To bring Fortnite to Linux, we are rebuilding Easy Anti-Cheat (EAC) and working with distro maintainers on security requirements,” Epic said in a blog post quoted by The Verge. Distro maintainers are the groups that build the different versions of Linux.
Rick Deist, an Epic engineering director, told The Verge there is no timeline for a Linux version of Fortnite and that Epic is “investigating” support for Valve’s SteamOS. Keely told The Verge that Epic does not plan to put Fortnite on Valve’s Steam store. Epic said the Steam Deck “does not support the required features for our EAC v2 solution”, but that it is talking with Valve.
The bigger picture
The launch follows Epic chief executive Tim Sweeney’s announcement on 12 October of a “huge pivot” towards AI across the company. Epic laid off more than 1,000 staff in March; at the time, Sweeney said the layoffs “aren’t related to AI”, The Verge noted.
What this means
- Vibe coding has reached a major consumer app. Epic says AI agents wrote and reviewed all the code, with people supervising.
- Linux gamers get a native launcher. Fortnite support depends on Epic’s rebuilt anti-cheat system, with no date given.
- It is still a preview. The old launcher stays until Epic says the new one is stable.
Sources
- The Verge (Jay Peters), “Epic’s new games launcher is ‘vibe coded'”, 14 October 2026. https://www.theverge.com/games/1010751/epic-games-launcher-vibe-coded-ai-linux
- The Verge (Jay Peters), “Epic is bringing Fortnite to Linux”, 14 October 2026. https://www.theverge.com/games/1010808/epic-fortnite-linux-anti-cheat
- Epic Games Store News, “The new Epic Games Launcher is finally here in Preview”, 14 October 2026. https://store.epicgames.com/en-US/news
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