Epic Games Store is Trying to Improve by Copying Steam

Epic Games Store hasn’t given up on its goal of becoming a true competitor to Steam in the PC gaming market. Epic has been making significant investments in growing its store for years, but the platform still falls short in terms of core features according to many players. The new roadmap shared during Unreal Fest shows that the company has entered a more aggressive phase to address these shortcomings. However, the fundamental question in players’ minds remains: Will Epic truly differentiate itself, or will it simply try to catch up, albeit belatedly, with the features Steam has offered for years?

Epic Games Store Approaching Steam with New Features

Epic Games shared its plans for the next 12 months at the Unreal Fest event in Chicago. Initially, features such as third-party patch notes, a party system, library management improvements, store optimizations, cross-region gifting, pre-registration for free games, and a store infrastructure overhaul are targeted.

The next phase includes planned improvements to the Epic Games Store, such as written user reviews, player profiles, discovery system enhancements, publisher coupons, search improvements, and a completely revamped Epic Games Launcher Version 2. In addition, third-party community spaces, new API tools, universal controller support, improved notifications, and social discovery features are also on the agenda.

Many of these features will be beneficial for gamers, but they also feel quite familiar. Steam has offered a strong structure in areas like user reviews, profiles, community pages, advanced search, and library management for years. Epic’s focus on these areas now shows that the platform is forced to follow in Valve’s footsteps to remain competitive.

Of course, this isn’t bad news. Making the Epic Games Store more user-friendly could be a significant improvement, especially for players who build libraries on the platform through free game campaigns. However, the fact that the store, despite being over seven years old, is only now addressing basic features is drawing criticism. For Epic to truly become a major player against Steam, it will need to go beyond simply distributing games and offer a more complete store experience that players can use comfortably in their daily lives.

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