Epic Games claims its new “vibe coded” launcher runs 46% faster than Steam from cold start to store page
Epic Games has released a beta version of its new launcher, claiming significant performance improvements over Steam. The company states the launcher is 46% faster than Steam when launching from cold start to the store page, and 14% faster when restoring from the system tray to the library.
The new launcher features a compact footprint of just 300MB and shows dramatic improvements over its predecessor. According to Martin Keely, vice president and general manager of Epic Games Store, the library loads 30 times faster than the previous launcher, while startup time has doubled.
Development of the new launcher leveraged artificial intelligence as a tool during the rewriting process, allowing a small team to accelerate development and enable faster multi-platform deployment. Epic has adopted the term “vibe coded” to describe this development approach.
However, Epic’s announcement arrives with notable timing context. On the same day Epic announced its launcher improvements, Valve released a Steam Client update focused on improving startup performance—directly addressing Epic’s primary competitive claim. Early testing suggests the practical differences between the two launchers are smaller than the headline figures suggest, with reviewers noting the performance gap measured in only seconds. Steam typically launches in around 10 seconds according to Epic’s testing, while their new launcher reportedly achieves approximately 5 seconds.
Valve’s swift update demonstrates the ongoing competitive dynamic between the two major PC gaming platforms, with both continually optimizing for user experience.
Sources
- Epic Games claims its new “vibe coded” launcher runs 46% faster than Steam from cold start to store page
- Epic said its game launcher was faster than Steam on the same day Steam got a speed boost—so I’ve put both to the test
- Epic boasted a lighter, vibe-coded game launcher, then Valve made Steam faster