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Friday, January 23, 2026

Another launcher disappears: fans celebrate “liberation” of Civ, Mafia, Bioshock, Xcom & Co.

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On its website, 2K Games has announced that it will remove its launcher from its games. The company does not provide a reason for this.

2K Games has removed its launcher from all games that used it on Epic and Steam.The game developer, which belongs to publisher Take Two, made this announcement onits website

Titles such as Bioshock Remastered and Bioshock Infinite can be started directly in the future without having to open a launcher. Fans are celebrating this decision on social media.

Launcher removed without replacement

On its website, 2K Games announced that the launcher had already been removed from all games on November 18, 2024. In addition, the separate 2K Launcher Beta used with Civilization 5 has also been removed.

For some titles, players can get started right away without a launcher. For other games, such as XCOM 2 or the Mafia Trilogy Definitive Edition , the website provides instructions on how to start the applications.

There is also a tutorial for deleting the launcher from the PC. There is also a FAQ included in the post. The last question is: “Can I still use the 2K Launcher if I want?”. The answer is: “We currently have no plans to allow an optional 2K Launcher, but we appreciate your interest

The answer may be humorous, but it shows that 2K Games is dropping the launcher without replacement.The company does not give reasons for this.

The fans are happy

The launchers are unpopular with many players. Rarely, so the criticism, the programs offer an advantage. Rather, it is a superfluous intermediate step that extends the wait for the game to start.

In addition, the programs can sometimes cause technical problems. A few years ago, the 2K launcher was criticized for causing performance issues in Marvel’s Midnight Suns

2K Launcher has been fully removed from Epic and Steam games
byu/Renegade_Meister inpcgaming

Accordingly, the news was received positively in the pcgaming subreddit, where user Renegade-Meister posted the news of the 2K launcher’s demise. User Tony_the_Parrot commented, “Holy shit, they finally gave up.” User Crackalacking_Z said, It’s good riddance. What a waste of time for everyone. Lemonsqueezzyy, on the other hand, simply writes: FREEDOM! And BigJman123 writes: Thank God! Away with these stupid launchers.

With this, the user alludes to some other programs of this kind from other companies. Because, among others, EA, Ubisoft and Rockstar Games still have their own launchers for their games. Some users are now hoping that these companies will follow 2K Games’ example in the future and also do without these programs.

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