Epic Games Store on Linux with Heroic Launcher
Date: 2021-10-23
While I am not a fan of EGS, I still use it as they give away games for free regularly. I have never bought any game on it, but my library is pretty good now. I have games like Control, the first Metro games, Pillars of Eternity, Rage 2, Shadowrun series, The Long Dark, etc. I used it to test my machine if it can run Control, but of course it couldn't. Still, if I will ever have a better machine, I have it in my library.
I have to say, using Epic Launcher is not a pain on Linux, but using it through Lutris is just taking up too much resources. Luckily, talented people made the Heroic Launcher which works much better. Just login in as usual, and you will see your EGS library. You can use it to install games, or sync an already installed library (so you don't have to reinstall the games).
How to install the Heroic Games Launcher
There are a few ways to do it. You can build it from source, if you like to, or you can download your favorite package, from the releases page. I personally prefer an AppImage, which handles everything, and it's only just one file. In this way if something doesn't work out I can simple delete the AppImage. Also I can have different versions installed on my system.
What can the HGL do?
It's basically a native EGS launcher. It supports the most useful and basic tasks.
- Login with an existing Epic Games account
- Install/Uninstall Games
- Import an already installed game
- Play online [EAC not supported on Linux]
- Update installed Games
- Repair installed Games
- Move installed games to different folders
- Play games using the default wine and default prefix [Linux]
- Play game with custom wine and prefix [Linux]
- Check basic information about your Games
- Open game page on Epic Store
- Search for the game on ProtonDB [Linux]
- Sync installed games with an existing Epic Games instalation
- Sync saves with the cloud
What I like that it's easy to configure some useful stuff, like MangoHUD, which shows you an fps counter and other things. It also supports Gamemode, but since it depends on systemd I can't use it.
For me it works better than the original client via Wine, and it seems to take up less resources.
