The preview is deliberately light on features. Epic describes it as "a speedboat and not a yacht", though it does gain library game pages, collections and a unified downloads page. Some social features and account management options are missing, and Epic is asking Unreal Engine developers and competitive Fortnite and Rocket League players to stick with the old launcher for now. The current launcher remains available, and Epic says the full launch will happen once the new version feels stable and reaches feature parity.

The AI angle lands a day after CEO Tim Sweeney announced a "huge pivot" to retool Epic's developers "for maximum AI acceleration", and after a Bloomberg report, citing an Epic director, that staffers on an unannounced Disney title were told there would be "no more hand-written code". Martin Keely, Epic's VP and GM of the Epic Games Store, told The Verge that AI agents wrote and reviewed all of the launcher's code, but that the team "managed that process" and "supervised the entirety of what we did". He says AI was "super helpful" for testing and replicating the old launcher's core functionality, and helped bring the launcher to Linux, where Epic also plans to bring Fortnite through the app.

The rebuild has been a while coming. Epic's own store leadership called the existing launcher "slow" back in February and promised improvements, and at Unreal Fest in June the company claimed the new version would start five times faster on average, without mentioning AI. Epic laid off more than 1,000 staff in March, which Sweeney said at the time were not related to AI.