More and more launchers have been popping up from publishers for years now, making PC gamers jump through extra hoops before they get to play their games. The trend may be slowly going away though. Civilization franchise developer Firaxis today quietly announced that the 2K Launcher is going out the door for its games, and fans are overjoyed.
Firaxis Games' community manager Sarah revealed the information on a Reddit post on the /r/civ subreddit. With the latest update to Civilization VI that landed today, August 15, The 2K Launcher is no longer attached to the hit strategy game on Steam. When launched, Steam will now send players straight into the game without having go through 2K.
While the launcher seems to be stable currently, it did go through a controversy a few years back for causing massive performance issues. Players have been able to launch games without the 2K Launcher since its inception, but that required workarounds like adding custom launch options.
The Epic Games Store version of Civilization VI still has the 2K Launcher attached to it, but an update will remove it "in the near future" according to Firaxis.
However, the biggest piece of news attached to today's announcement is that the next entry in the franchise, Civilization VII, will also avoid having the 2K Launcher attached to it. This announcement alone has the Civilization fan community celebrating about the future of the franchise, as can be seen in the reddit thread announcing the news.
Civilization VII currently has a rather broad 2025 release window, with only a cinematic trailer available for fans to view. However, Firaxis plans to have full gameplay reveal during the Gamescom Opening Night Live ceremony on August 20. Following that, a gameplay deep dive with 20 minutes of gameplay footage will land on August 21 as part of a Civilization dedicated livestream.
_small.jpg)
4 Comments - Add comment