We’re all trapped in launcher hell. Right now, as I write this, my taskbar trembles with apps: Steam, Battle.net, Ubisoft Connect, the Epic Game Store. In my start menu lurks another nest: GOG Galaxy, Xbox, EA, the Paradox Launcher. To add insult to injury, pretty much every one of them bar Steam will intermittently forget my login as they hoover up my telemetry. Just to rub it in.
Perhaps in the future we’ll only have to install software we actually want on our computers, but for now I’ll take whatever little wins I can get. So I was chuffed to learn that, when Battlefield 6 hits Steam, it won’t require us poor, benighted lot to deal with the EA App in order to play it. Bad news for the Epic Games Store devotees that presumably exist out there somewhere, though: you will have to deal with it.
That’s per EA’s own fact sheet on the upcoming Battlefield, which puts the divide in plain terms. “Steam players will not need to use [the] EA App to play Battlefield 6 but will need an EA account. Those who purchased Battlefield 6 via the Epic Games Store will need [the] EA App and an EA account to play.” Rough.
Why will Epic users need to use the EA App while Steam users won’t? EA’s not saying, beyond helpfully clarifying that “The EA App will help track player progress, making it easy to share your gameplay stats with friends.” When it’s not crashing, anyway.
You might think I’m being overwrought about all this, but in my experience the EA App is by far the most hateful launcher experience out there. It constantly forces me to re-login, crashes, fails to trigger achievements, and the one time I actually had to interact with its friends list my comrade and I ended up in a strange, liminal state where they were both on my friends list and not on it. We gave up.
So I’m thrilled to hear BF6 won’t make me deal with it, at least on Steam. There is something of a pattern emerging here, though. Recently, EA did something PCG FPS czar Morgan Park had begun to fear was impossible: make a rational and popular decision about Battlefield 6. It announced that, yes, it would let people have classic class weapons in the BF6 beta after everyone kicked up about them not being there.
Now EA is saying those players—at least on Steam—also won’t have to wrestle its launcher into submission? Careful, guys. Any more good decisions and people will start to expect them.
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