Metro Exodus Will Exclusively Launch on Epic Games Store; Valve Says It’s “Unfair”

Epic Games and Deep Silver today announced a partnership that will see the digitally-distributed PC version of Metro Exodus launching exclusively on the Epic Games store on February 15. In addition, Deep Silver will be releasing Metro 2033 Redux and Metro: Last Light Redux to the Epic Games store later this year.

Players can now pre-purchase both Standard and Gold Editions of Metro Exodus at EpicGames.com. All pre-orders include the Metro Exodus Original Soundtrack and ‘The World of Metro’ Digital Art Book.  It’s important to note that any customer with an outstanding pre-order for Metro Exodus on PC through any digital retailer will receive their game as expected.

For anyone that pre-ordered the game on Steam, those pre-orders will still be honored. The Epic Games store exclusivity deal is valid for a year as Metro Exodus will be available on Steam on February 15, 2020. Valve, however, isn’t a happy camper with the deal. Shortly after the company heard the news, a notice from the company was posted on Metro Exodus‘ Steam page — which mentions how the Epic Games store exclusivity deal is “unfair”.

Here’s the full notice from Valve:

Notice: Later today, sales of Metro Exodus will be discontinued on Steam due to a publisher decision to make the game exclusive to another PC store.

The developer and publisher have assured us that all prior sales of the game on Steam will be fulfilled on Steam, and Steam owners will be able to access the game and any future updates or DLC through Steam.

We think the decision to remove the game is unfair to Steam customers, especially after a long pre-sale period. We apologize 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.

Metro Exodus will be released on February 15 for Xbox One, the all-in-one games and entertainment system from Microsoft, the PlayStation® 4 computer entertainment system, and PC.

On the flip side, Epic Games and Deep Silver are both happy to work together in bringing Metro Exodus to the Epic Games store. Via a press release, Tim Sweeney, founder and CEO of Epic, mentioned that “we are partnering with Deep Silver to launch Metro Exodus, underpinned by Epic’s marketing support and commitment to offering an 88 percent revenue split, enabling game creators to further reinvest in building great games and improving the economics of game stores for everybody.”

Dr. Klemens Kundratitz, CEO at Deep Silver, said that the company is “delighted to partner with Epic to bring the digital PC version of Metro Exodus to market.” Deep Silver’s CEO also praised Epic as he shared that “Epic’s generous revenue terms are a game changer that will allow publishers to invest more into content creation, or pass on savings to the players” — and also mentioned how partnering with Epic will allow for Deep Silver to “invest more into the future of Metro and our ongoing partnership with series developer 4A Games, to the benefit of our Metro fans.”

For console gamers, Metro Exodus is still slated to release on February 15 for Xbox One and PS4, so no worries there.

Since we’ve already covered Metro Exodus’ development, weapon customization feature, story, and much more — expect us to continue to cover — and also review — the highly-anticipated first-person shooter.

Author’s take: Well, Epic is clearly making an epic effort to make the Epic Games store a true competitor to Steam.