Steam and Epic Games feud over Metro Exodus

Metro Exodus, the latest upcoming game in the Metro series from developer Deep Silver was announced to be sold on Epic Games’ store solely for its PC release on February 15th, 2019.

This a decision that has come to fruition because of the higher revenue promised, with Epic Games boasting an 88 percent cut for developers and publishers in revenue compared to Steam’s 70%.  This is said by both parties to benefit the community, with these profits being promised to be used to invest back into the games.

This can be confusing for fans that have seen the preorder advertisements on Steam and opted into this, but Deep Silver promised through the announcement that the Metro Exodus preorders and all their bonuses and DLC will be “honoured and available to play on the release date of February 15th, 2019” on Steam or their digital retailer of choice.

Valve has issued a response to this on the page for the game on Steam, calling it unfair. “We think the decision to remove the game is unfair to Steam customers, especially after a long pre-sale period,” the comment says. “We apologise to Steam customers that were expecting it to be available for sale through the February 15th release date, but we were only recently informed of the decision and given limited time to let everyone know.”

This isn’t the first title to make the jump to Epic’s typical one year exclusive deal, with Ubisoft’s The Division 2 arriving on the platform on it’s March 15th release slate. With another large game now exclusively available with Epic and potentially more to come, this could be the first real threat that Steam has had when it comes to digital stores.

It is expected that as per this exclusivity deal, Metro Exodus will be available for purchase on Steam from February 14, 2020.