The Epic Games Store got a facelift today with the rollout of new features including expanded cloud saves, new product pages, and keyless integration with the Humble Store that will enable you to purchase games there and have them automatically added to your EGS account.
To enable the latter feature, log into your account at Humble, select "settings" from the dropdown menu under your email address, hit the "Epic Games Link" button, and then throw the thumbs-up in the popup that appears. That's the whole process—you might have to log into your Epic account if you're not already logged in, but otherwise you're done. Your mileage may vary but I found it to be pleasantly hassle-free.
The switch to keyless Humble activation, one Ubisoft has already made, is an apparent attempt to end key reselling.
Cloud saves, which debuted in July, have been expanded to the following games:
- Alan Wake
- Close to the Sun
- Darksiders III
- Enter the Gungeon
- Genesis Alpha One
- GNOG
- Hyperlight Drifter
- Kingdom New Lands
- Limbo
- Moonlighter
- Mutant Year Zero
- Overcooked
- Rebel Galaxy Outlaw
- Sherlock Holmes: The Devil's Daughter
- The Sinking City
- This War Of Mine
- World War Z
All Ubisoft games on the EGS also have cloud saves enabled through Uplay. Epic said it's continuing to work with the developers of other games on the store to test and enable cloud saves, and upcoming games that support the feature will have it enabled at launch. Apparently the process really is a little more complicated than the "make cloud saves go" button:
We've temporarily disabled Cloud Saves for Hyper Light Drifter while we investigate an issue causing the Epic Games store launcher to crash. We are actively investigating and working on a fix.August 15, 2019
Product pages are now more cleanly laid out, with relevant information, including developer, tags, rating, and release date, at the top of the game description, followed by images, social links, and PC system requirements in their own segmented sections.
Unfortunately, there's nothing about the status of preloading in the update. Epic enabled the preload feature in May, but CEO Tim Sweeney said earlier this week that preloading won't be available for Borderlands 3 ahead of its September 13 launch, because "we aren't certain it's up to the demands of a blockbuster like Borderlands." At the same time, he expressed confidence that EGS servers will be able to handle the presumed flood of users attempting to purchase and download the game simultaneously on launch day. Epic declined to comment further on the statements.
Still, it's a step in the right direction, and more steps are coming: Epic is testing an "improved installation experience" that will reduce time and drive space requirements (the new system is live in For Honor and will come to other Ubisoft games next), rolling out its own video hosting service for store pages, optimizing the patch process for developers that will significantly reduce patch download sizes, and adding a playtime tracker to help users ensure that they don't unintentionally exceed refund time limits. The game library layout is also being redesigned, beginning with a "list view" that will enable sorting and filtering.
No date for any of these features were set, but you can follow along with the process on the EGS roadmap.
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