The Epic Games Store has finally received an offline mode

[Polycount]

What just happened? Epic's new store is causing some division in the PC gaming community. Some argue that anything that challenges Steam is worth supporting, while others say Epic's store must top Steam's features to earn their hard-earned cash. The latter group will be pleased to hear that one of the Epic Store's most-requested features has finally arrived - offline mode.

Though it does not appear to be a toggle-able feature as it is on Steam, Epic's game launcher now lets you "skip sign in" to play your games if your internet is down.

Right now, the only way to access this feature manually is to simply close the Epic Launcher, temporarily switch off your internet connection, and launch the program once more.

This could change in the future, but for now, it's better than nothing - always-online requirements are typically not something avid PC gamers are fans of. However, this "mode" alone probably won't be enough to persuade Steam diehards to make the switch.

To that end, we're looking forward to seeing how Epic expands upon its store's feature set moving forward.

Permalink to story.

https://www.techspot.com/news/78721-epic-games-store-has-finally-received-offline-mode.html

 

[Axiarus]

IDGAF about the features it adds. As long as Epic is a crappy company I will not use their launcher.

 

[BSim500]

Neat tip that even tech sites still have yet to figure out - many games on Epic such as Subnautica, Ashen and the current freebie Axiom Verge have been quietly DRM-Free all along. After you've downloaded it for the first time, you basically create a shortcut to the game's .exe directly, and then add -EpicPortal switch at the end. Many games will then run without the client even being installed. "Reinstalling" is as simple as zipping / unzipping up the game folder, no different to the DRM-Free Steam games on this list.

It's a sad day indeed when PC users (and even tech sites) have become so habitualized to needing a client for Steam they've forgotten how to launch programs directly without requiring any client...

 

[ET3D]

Frankly, I like the way this works. Steam's offline mode, when I needed it, didn't work that well in circumstances like this (no internet).

 

[Dunmer2K7]

You first need to be online to enter the launcher so you can go offline, so there's effectively NO offline mode!

 

[Techstar]

Neat tip that even tech sites still have yet to figure out - many games on Epic such as Subnautica, Ashen and the current freebie Axiom Verge have been quietly DRM-Free all along. After you've downloaded it for the first time, you basically create a shortcut to the game's .exe directly, and then add -EpicPortal switch at the end. Many games will then run without the client even being installed. "Reinstalling" is as simple as zipping / unzipping up the game folder, no different to the DRM-Free Steam games on this list.

It's a sad day indeed when PC users (and even tech sites) have become so habitualized to needing a client for Steam they've forgotten how to launch programs directly without requiring any client...

Luckily we are not at that point yet for most PC owners.