Through the latest Epic Games Store update, Epic is finally catching up with other digital store-slash-launchers’ features. After Epic turned its game launcher into a full-fledged store on December 6, 2018, the release was met with disappointments since many saw it lacked ‘standard features’ compared to its rivals such as Steam. Eventually, the Search feature was added back in March, Cloud Save in July 2019, and late this month, they finally rolled out Achievement system and mod support.
Epic Games Store official Twitter account, @EpicGames, announced they are rolling out an “early version” of the Achievement system on July 30th. They haven’t said which titles on their store are getting achievements support in the near future but judging from the teaser below, for now, they’re only testing it for ARK: Survival Evolved. The system has been in development since at least May 2020.
Certain games on the Epic Games Store may begin to display achievements as you unlock them.
This is an early version of the feature and you can expect to see changes & adjustments.
We'll have more info to share on achievements in the future, so stay tuned! pic.twitter.com/80dnoLYegV
— Epic Games Store (@EpicGames) July 29, 2020
And then on July 31, Epic said they are releasing the beta for modding support system in Epic Games Store, starting with the mech action game MechWarrior 5: Mercenaries. The mod page will list a catalog of both player and developer-made mods and you will be able to auto-install mods into your games, either using the Epic Games launcher or by downloading the files separately. You can take a peek at how the Epic Store modding page will look like by going to the MechWarrior 5 mods page.
If you go there, there are already 12 different mods already available to download ranging from HUD and graphics modification, weapon mods, weather system improvement, to gameplay conversion (from action-based to strategy-based).
After Achievement and mod support, it seems Epic is planning to add two new categories on the Epic Games storefront judging from their roadmap: ‘Trending’, to show popular titles in the front page, and ‘Add-on Discovery’, to make browsing DLCs easier. While it’s cool to be able to brag your Achievements list to your friend, personally I think a shopping cart feature should’ve been a higher priority than both of these. Don’t you agree? Tell us what you think of Epic Games Store’s updates in the comments.