The Epic Store's first big third-party exclusive is here. Nothing seems to have caught on fire: you can log into the Epic client, pay for Metro Exodus, download and play it. You won't earn any trading cards or achievements, but the Epic Store's quietude seems appropriate in this case—post-apocalyptic Russia doesn't offer many pats on the back either.
Now that the day is here, has Metro's exodus from Steam—which I called an act of war on Epic's part—affected your desire to play it, if one existed? It seemingly hasn't for our Twitter followers. When we polled them about this week's game releases, 41 percent of respondents said they were more excited for Metro Exodus than Far Cry New Dawn, Anthem, or Civilization 6: New Dawn. It ain't science, but anecdotally, those results run contrary to a lot of the comments we see. More than a few have said they'll be skipping Exodus on account of its timed Epic Store exclusivity, either picking it up on Steam in a year or not at all.
We asked the PC Gamer Club's Discord members how they felt earlier this week, and got mixed responses.
"I have too many launchers as it is and, frankly, waiting till nearly last minute put a bad taste in my mouth," said Papa Zane, who's skipping Exodus.
"I have no issue with Epic overall and I think in the long-term it will be good to have another strong player in the PC store front," said Viderian, who won't be picking up Exodus on account of having too many other games to play at the moment. (And there are a lot of great games to play at the moment.)
"I want to see non-first party exclusives go away and have Steam and Epic work to get a better product," they added, responding to a comment about Epic's exclusivity strategy. "Both companies can throw money around to get exclusives but the newcomer is being a bit brash about getting market share. Sure, it is what you do to force an influx of customers with the hopes that people will forget past misgivings."
"I'll gladly buy it outside of Steam," said Chriz86, "Valve seriously needs competition."
Apollo, meanwhile, is irked at Epic's discount for Unreal Engine games. "I don't like the whole encouraging devs to use Unreal," he wrote. "I mean I can imagine a world where the Epic Store is king and them pushing Unreal down people's throats."
How about you? Did you buy Metro Exodus on the Epic Store? If so, let us know in the comments how you feel about the experience. Has the change of launcher affected how you feel about the game?
And if you were going to buy Exodus but chose not to after it hopped a train over to Epic's camp, let us know why and how you feel now that the game's out and being talked about. (On that topic, here's Andy's Metro Exodus review.)
