This gives the Steam audience a “cleaner” version of the B-movie-style third-person shooter with alien extermination.
When Earth Defense Force 6 was released in July, publisher D3Publisher announced that an Epic Games account would be required for cross-play and online functionality. This was annoying for players because it was a last-minute announcement by the publisher and no one was expecting it. It was all due to the use of Epic Online Services, and the feedback from players was not lacking: after its launch, the new Earth Defense Force fell into a mostly negative category on Steam.
But D3Publisher has now posted this on Valve’s digital storefront: “This application has been modified to allow you to play online missions without logging into your Epic Games account. Signing into your Epic Games account is no longer required. If you wish to unlink your Steam account from your Epic Games account, please visit the Epic Games website in a web browser.” And D3Publisher confirmed to PCGamer how not linking (or unlinking) the Epic account will lose some functionality: “Earth Defense Force 6 supports online cross-play with Epic Games Store players. As of the latest update, even if you don’t link your Epic Games account, you will still be able to play the game both online and offline. However, in order to use the “Invite” and “Friend” features for Epic Games Store players while playing online, you will need to create an Epic Games account and link it to your Steam account.
This story is eerily similar to the very negative feedback we saw around Helldivers 2 earlier this year, when Sony angered gamers by suddenly making a PlayStation Network account mandatory (and will do the same for Horizon Zero Dawn Remastered, which was covered in today’s news).
At least Earth Defense Force 6 has finally fixed what was bothering many.
