There have not been a lot of Epic Retail outlet exclusivity announcements not long ago, which received me wanting to know if Epic might be winding down that aspect of its system. Nope. According to Epic, the reverse is the case.
“We have a lot more exclusives coming in the next two several years than we have printed to day,” a organization agent instructed Pc Gamer when requested about its exclusivity system for the in close proximity to long term.
There goes my concept.
If you just glimpse at the quantities, though, things have quieted down not too long ago. By my rely, there are at present close to 21 unreleased Epic exclusives forward of us, and I’m guessing about some of them. Which is not really several considering that more than 100 exclusives have released on the retailer around the past two years. Of those, a small below half launched prolonged plenty of back that their exclusivity contracts have expired, and they are now available on Steam. That incorporates video games such as Metro Exodus, Borderlands 3, Command, The Outer Worlds, and Hades.
Contemplate my numbers to be estimates, since they’re based on a manual count and a minor speculation. There’ll also be different viewpoints about what counts as an “exclusive.” I have incorporated any recreation that unveiled on the Epic Keep but not Steam, irrespective of whether or not a explanation was specified, and no matter if or not the game launched on other, non-Steam suppliers. This is what I arrived up with:
| Online games you can buy on the Epic Keep, but not Steam* | Video games that were being Epic exclusives, but are now on Steam, much too | Unreleased Epic Keep exclusives** | |
|---|---|---|---|
| 65 | 50 | 21 |
*Excludes online games created by Epic itself (Fortnite, Unreal Match).
**Consists of video games that will also release on Ubisoft or Microsoft’s shops, and assumes that Epic-revealed game titles will be exclusives.
With people quantities is intellect, you can see why I suspected that Epic experienced stopped getting exclusives as aggressively as it had in 2019 and early 2020. Epic suggests that is just not the scenario, though, which implies that there are a good deal of approaching online games we never know about still.
What impending exclusives do we know about?
Here are the 21 nonetheless-to-launch Epic Shop exclusives I counted:
| Game | Observe |
|---|---|
| Chivalry 2 | Just one-year timed distinctive |
| Kena: Bridge of Spirits | Timed exclusive |
| Darkest Dungeon 2 | Distinctive until stop of Early Access |
| Unexplored 2: The Wayfarer’s Legacy | Just one-12 months timed special |
| Solar Ash | Timed distinctive, as significantly as we know |
| The Everlasting Cylinder | Epic Retail outlet distinctive “at start” |
| Monkey Barrels | No word on a Steam launch |
| Saturnalia | No word on a Steam launch |
| Oddworld: Soulstorm | No term on a Steam launch |
| The Wolf Among the Us 2 | No term on a Steam release |
| Jett: The Far Shore | No term on a Steam release |
| Vampire: The Masquerade – Swansong | Bloodlines 2 won’t be exclusive, however |
| Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time Remake | Also on the Ubisoft Keep |
| Significantly Cry 6 | Also on the Ubisoft Store |
| Rainbow Six Quarantine | Also on the Ubisoft Retail outlet |
| The Settlers | Also on the Ubisoft Store |
| Riders Republic | Also on the Ubisoft Keep |
| Long run Solution match #1 | Epic Online games is publishing |
| Foreseeable future Treatment video game #2 | Epic Online games is publishing |
| Upcoming Playdead video game | Epic Online games is publishing |
| Future genDesign video game | Epic Game titles is publishing |
Appropriate now, Ubisoft is the greatest solitary supply of foreseeable future Epic Retailer exclusives, though it’s almost certainly far more correct to label them “semi-exclusives.” Given that 2019, Ubisoft has been releasing most of its new Laptop games on the Epic Game titles Store and the Ubisoft Retail outlet (previously recognized as Uplay), but not on Steam. The organization hasn’t claimed that these video games is not going to at any time look on Steam, but hasn’t declared Steam launch dates possibly. You can wager that the next Assassin’s Creed will release on the Epic Store, as well, whilst I failed to include it in this record. That sport will very likely be out in 2022.
Even even more out than the upcoming Assassin’s Creed—probably, at least—are the untitled game titles I included from Solution Entertainment (Alan Wake, Regulate), Playdead (Limbo, Inside), and genDesign (The Previous Guardian). These games are being funded by Epic alone underneath the new publishing wing it introduced final calendar year, and I am building the fairly safe assumption that online games released by Epic will be Epic Retailer exclusives on Pc. (Treatment claimed that Epic is publishing its “next two unannounced video game titles,” so I dropped it in two times.)
Exterior of Ubisoft and Epic, the upcoming special record is very modest. Darkest Dungeon 2 will only be there till it is really out of early obtain. Chivalry 2 might be the next most important sport on the listing, and like most Epic exclusives, it will only stay special for a year. Factors are so tranquil that I was genuinely shocked when Epic explained to me that it options to increase the price of special releases in excess of the future few decades.
In 2019, Epic Online games Retail store head Steve Allison explained that the firm wouldn’t essentially chase exclusivity discounts without end, and that it could one day stop altogether, or go to having “pretty, quite couple” exclusives for every calendar year. Together with giving away absolutely free game titles every single week (a system that’ll keep on during 2021), exclusives have been a way for Epic to bring in new clients who would in any other case adhere to Steam—an entry plan, but not essentially a forever approach. For now, that entry system stays in comprehensive influence, and will clearly continue to be that way for the foreseeable foreseeable future.
So, how’s it heading? Very well, Epic suggests that it offered $265 million well worth of third-celebration games on the Epic Retail outlet in 2020. When compared to a couple several years ago, when Epic didn’t have a Laptop activity shop at all, that is a huge maximize. Compared to 2019, nonetheless, it truly is an enhance of all over 5.6 percent—Epic Store buyers expended $251 million on third-bash video games that calendar year, which was store’s very first comprehensive 12 months of existence. (These revenue numbers disregard the cost of coupon codes and progress payments to developers, which is how Epic secures exclusives.)
Proper now, even though, Epic is all about obtaining much more persons onto its platform, not building money—Fortnite covers that—and in that regard matters surface to be heading extremely perfectly. Epic suggests that it captivated 56 million regular monthly active people in December 2020, up from 32 million at the end of 2019, which is a 75 percent boost. Steam final noted 120M regular monthly lively users, so it is really even now considerably greater, but there is certainly no sign that Epic has strike a ceiling.
When I got in touch, Epic also reiterated that it ideas to give self-publishing equipment to make the Epic Video games Store much more obtainable to new developers before the finish of the yr. “Our investment into material is going to keep on and multiply as we function toward an open up retail store and start even a lot more system functions,” the corporation reported.