What just happened? After years of being the dominant force in the world of PC game sales, it looks like Steam is facing its most serious competitor yet in the form of the Epic Games Store. Now, Epic has announced it is partnering with Ubisoft to bring select PC titles, including Tom Clancy's The Division 2, to its digital distribution platform as semi-exclusives.
Epic Games Store's library is only a fraction of that offered by Steam, but since launching last month, the company has been trying to tempt consumers away from Valve's service with exclusives such as Hades and the final episode of Telltale's The Walking Dead: The Final Season. It also gives away a new free game every two weeks, which so far has included Subnautica and Super Meat Boy.
Grabbing The Division 2 is the Epic Games Store's biggest coup so far. It's not entirely exclusive as it will also be available on Ubisoft's own online storefront, but there are currently no plans to sell it on Steam.
Epic and Ubisoft added that they would "also partner on additional select titles [coming to the Epic Store] to be announced during the coming year."
"Epic continues to disrupt the video game industry, and their third party digital distribution model is the latest example, and something Ubisoft wants to support," said Ubisoft's VP of partnerships, Chris Early.
In addition to the benefits on offer to users, the Epic Store pays developers 88 percent of game sale revenue---an improvement over Steam, whose cut starts at 30 percent. Discord, on the other hand, offers devs a 90 percent revenue share.
While there are other storefronts out there, including Origin and GoG, they've never been able to match the behemoth that is Steam, but in the short time that it's been around, the Epic Games Store has already shown its ambition to steal Valve's crown.
In other Division 2 news, the game's system requirements have been revealed:
Minimum system requirements - 1080p | 30 FPS
- OS: Windows 7 | 8 | 10
- CPU: AMD FX-6350 | Intel Core I5-2500K
- RAM: 8 GM
- GPU: AMD Radeon R9 270 | Nvidia Geforce GTX 670
- VRAM: 2 GB
- DirectX: DirectX 11 | 12
Recommended system requirements - 1080p | 60 FPS
- OS: Windows 7 | 8 | 10
- CPU: AMD Ryzen 5 1500X | Intel Core I7-4790
- RAM: 8 GB
- GPU: AMD RX 480 | Nvidia Geforce GTX 970
- VRAM: 4 GB
- DirectX: DirectX 11 | 12
High system requirements - 1440p | 60 FPS
- OS: Windows 7 | 8 | 10
- CPU: AMD Ryzen 7 1700 | Intel Core I7-6700K
- RAM: 16 GB
- GPU: AMD RX Vega 56 | Nvidia Geforce GTX 1070
- VRAM: 8 GB
- DirectX: DirectX 11 | 12
Elite system requirements - 4K | 60 FPS
- OS: Windows 7 | 8 | 10
- CPU: AMD Ryzen 7 2700X | Intel Core I9-7900X
- RAM: 16 GB
- GPU: AMD Radeon VII | Nvidia Geforce RTX 2080 TI
- VRAM: 11 GB
- DirectX: DirectX 11 | 12