Does the current version of This War of Mine not work at all now without the launcher? If it includes both 32 & 64 bit and only one of them works I'm tempted to leave it in, but if it's more a case of the older versions were 32-bit and worked but have been replaced by new 64-bit only versions that don't, then I'll have to remove it. I do own the game on GOG but it's one of those games where I really wasn't interested in the Story Modes so I just kept the older build without ever updating or claiming the Epic version, and am unfamiliar with the new one.

I honestly feel we may already be at the peak of DRM-Free ness on Epic now. Epic Games may not be deliberately encouraging DRM as Steam do, but the more they adopt online client features (but unlike GOG don't provide an offline installer "failsafe"), the more games may start silently failing the offline functionality check one way or another unless it's been coded to account for that.

I recently bought Disco Elysium from Epic.

Not sure if it's me running the "wrong" EXE or whatever - but I have to use "-EpicPortal" target to get it to work offline and to not force the Epic Game Launcher to run in the background.

This is a misleadingingly described/titled thread. There are zero games you can play without Epics launcher because AFAIK none of them can be downloaded and installed without the launcher. Which means you still need the launcher, at least at first, and it still needs to be installed.

Was that one of the daily free games offered on Epic during Christmas? Shit if I missed that! Still don't feel safe actually trying to get Epics launcher installed on my Linux machine.

Subnautice doesn't work with the -EpicPortal option only, but indeed with adding the second parameter "-vrmode none".

That's great, thank you!

The title is not misleading, only if you want to be. Anyway, you can play them without the epic launcher, there are alternative launchers.

The current version is 64bit only and isn't DRM free. The old 32bit version is but isn't available. So make sure you keep a backup of that if you have it. I do comparisons of the releases between different stores so sometimes you can copy files from one release to another. Will have to make a note for this one.


The extent of the "install" process these games is installing the redistributables which are mostly already installed either by using the latest OS or from other game installs and shortcuts.

There are programs other than Epics that will allow one to download and install Epic games? What name?

OK, thanks for the heads up. I've updated the list.

Yeah I have a folder of all the common redists backed up (DirectX, all the VCRedists 2005, 2008, 2010, 2012, 2013, 2015-2019, .NET Framework, XNA Framework, MSXML, OpenAL, etc). I'll have to see about making a proper list sometime.

https://github.com/derrod/legendary

As for the thread title, I specifically wrote in the first post "This list is meant to be a similar resource to the Steam version for those who already don't mind using the Epic Games Launcher to grab the files once and from then on, use / archive them in a DRM-Free manner". In a perfect world, Epic, Steam and everyone else would provide GOG style offline installers but since they don't it's the next best thing, and given the surprisingly generous freebies Epic have given out, it costs nothing to try.

Thanks, you know of a version for Linux?

https://github.com/derrod/legendary/wiki/Available-Linux-Packages

Is there a benefit of having an installer vs games you can play without the launcher?

The main one is DRM-Free GOG installers are likely to remain DRM-Free long term (in terms of being able to re-download them at any time in future with that expectation), whilst being able to play some Steam / Epic games without a launcher is more an unofficial bonus that can disappear any time (ie, Epic / Steam games can have DRM added in any patch, or other unwelcome changes added that require the client to be running (like if a game is coded to cloud save by default / an achievement unlock expects a response from a running client).

Or in other words, if you want a drm free game from epic as advertised in this thread, you will have to download it and store it on your own computer 'forever' if you want to play it at any point in the future. Which is what I do, but only for the games I really like, not for every weekly freebie.

You can (and probably should) download updates for games as they fix things, but you'd have to recheck if they are still drm free and not delete your old copy before you are sure.

Your suggestion to get Crying Suns to run without the launcher (rename or delete EOSSDK-Win64-Shipping.dll) worked for me. New game and Continue seem to work. Offline too.

Accurate information is appreciated. Thank you.

Oh, this is really interesting.

So is this "EOSSDK-Win64-Shipping.dll" when it's there, that's basically just a DLL file forcing games to utilize EGS Launcher client-app?