As the digital distribution platform wars play ꦉout, with an ever-increasing number of developers moving to their own custom online storefronts, many are wondering where it will end.
If you often find yourself wondering why we need to have so many launchers, and wishing there was a simpler solution, then GOG has you covered. Their new Galaxy 2.0 launch🐓er aims to unite the warring𒁃 platforms on your desktop and combine them into one handy solution.
GOG Galaxy
Previously, the GOG Galaxy launcher was simply another platform. While it wasn’t compulsory for downloading GOG games, it offered extra features, jus𝐆t like every other launcher.
Galaxy 2.0 is di𓃲ff♎erent in that it seeks to combine several other platforms into one place. While it doesn’t include all the launchers currently available at this point, it combines enough together that life is about to get a lot easier.
Combining Platforms
Galaxy 2.0 will link together your accounts from Epic, Origin, Steam, and Uplay, along with your existing GOG account. You can also link your Xbox Live and 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:PlayStation accounts.
Aside from the Xbox Live and GOG links, the others are all built by the community. The most popular community i🏅ntegrations, as listed above, are easily accessible below the main options. There🃏 is also information about how to make your own integrations.
This part was the only section of the platform which felt out of my depth as a non-technical user, but it appears to be entirely optional. An option to “refresh integrat𓄧ions” from the main menu means that any extra popular links made by the community appear to show once completed.
Once you’ve linked your accounts then can search for games by account or view a list of all the games you own across every linked platform. The GOG launcher will then connect to the original platform ไand allow you to load up whatever you want to play, from one place.
How To Set-Up Account Integration
The set up was much easier than I expected, with the most annoying part being the two-part authentication on every single platform kicking in at once,🔜 leading to my email being spammed with notificat𝔍ions and codes.
From GOG’s side all you needed to do was click "Add ♓Games And Friends," followed by "Connect Platforms𒅌." You then simply logged into each account, just once, to connect them.
T📖he platform contains more specific information for your GOG games, offering all the flexibility you would expect from a launcher. You can change install locations, customize the region and alter your bandwidth settings. These all work in the same way as the previous Galaxy launcher.
Playing Games
If you can remember the platform your chosen game is on, you📖 can click on the platform-sp✨ecific bookmark to access the game. Otherwise, you can choose to display the "All Games" list, which displays everything.
This list appears cumbersome at first, especially if your games number well into three figures. However, GOG has taken this into ꦦaccount, offering a range of filters to help you find something to play. Yꦗou can also search for specific titles.
The filter defaults to sh🌺owing only Windows games when the launcher is opened on my PC. However, there is also an option to search by Linux, MacOS, PlayStation, or Xbox. You can also filter by p☂latform, but it’s easier to do this via the automatically added bookmarks down the left-hand side.
Finally, the most useful filters are the genre ones. There are 20 different genres to filter by, meaning you can quickly scan the one you fancy to see all games of that type. You can also choose more than one genre,🐬 which is useful for those which overlap.
Once you’ve chosen a game simply hitꦉ the play button at the top. A message will appear to let you know what platform you’re using and then the game will load as usual.
Features
As with many other launchers, Galaxy 2.0 will track and show information and statistics, including achievements pulled from Steam.
Each game has it’s own page. This includes an overview of the game, showing the game♎’s trailer, images and synopsis when available. It also shows the genre, style, release date and developer details.
In terms of statistics, the platform mos𒁃tly tracks hours played and achievements. It will count the hours for you and your friends, as well as the average number of hours across all players.
If you have specific titles which you play often, you can click the bookmark symbol and add them to the left-hand side for easy accesℱs. The different platforms will be added to bookmarks automatically but clicking the bookmark flag on each page will remove them. This allows you to customize the links you want easy access to.
Issues and Bugs
So far I’ve encountered fairly minimal issues with the launcher. I’ve been using it for a few days and the only real issue I encountered was whe💧n I needed to update a game.
It took a few at✅tempts before the game decided to connect and install the updates, rather than just freezing on install. However, once it did connect the install came down at a speed I would expect and then the game launched with no issues after installation.
The only other ജobvious niggles I've encountered so far are missing information, such as game co🔯vers or details.
Final Thoughts: A Space Saver, And A Time Saver
So far I’m very pl🍨eased with the launcher. It’s space-saving, but more importantly it’s time-saving. When I’m wondering what to play, being able to quickly access my entire games catalog, search it by genre, and then have the game open within 2 clicks is invaluable.
As it comes nearer to launch and the remaining bugs are worked out, it has the potential to become the launcher of choice, it already൲ is for me.