Earth Defense Force 6 Players Disapprove of Requiring Epic Games Store Account on Steam
Earth Defense Force 6, which was released today, received very poor reviews from users of the Steam platform. All because of the requirement to have an account on the Epic Games Store.
Today, the shooter game Earth Defense Force 6 has its global premiere, but its developers will probably not remember this day fondly. The game received a very negative response on Steam due to the requirement of having an account in the Epic Games Store.
- The sixth installment of the series from 2022 is available in Japan on PlayStation 4 and PlayStation 5, but only from July 25, 2024, can players in other countries around the world enjoy it. In addition to the mentioned platforms, the title also made its way to PC.
- This PC edition sparked the most controversy. The Earth Defense Force franchise is well-liked because of its online multiplayer, for which the developers have created their own infrastructure. The servers couldn't support crossplay due to the game being released on two generations of Sony consoles.
- In order to somehow improve the functioning of the entire system, the Sandlot studio decided to use Epic Online Services. This made it necessary for players to have an account in the Epic Games Store in order to play EDF6 on PC at all.
- At the time of writing this message, Earth Defense Force 6 received 1186 reviews on Steam. Only 26% of them are positive.
The requirement to have an account in the Epic Games Store is widely condemned in most opinions. This is how one of the internet users commented on the situation.
Requires a third party account with Epic Games to play online with friends, even if you only play with people who are solely on the Steam platform. There is no indication anywhere on the Steam page that this was the case before purchasing [for EDF 6 you currently have to pay $53.99] and is definitely a shady, potentially illegal business practice.
For contrast, let's also quote data regarding reviews on Steam for the previous installment of the series, namely Earth Defense Force 5. It was released on PC in 2019 and has as much as 94% positive reviews out of 10 thousand given.
The entire situation resembles the scandal involving Helldivers 2 and forcing players to link their Steam and PlayStation Network accounts. Then the publisher gave up this idea. Therefore, perhaps the devs of the discussed title will come to a similar conclusion.
