Metro Exodus sold 2.5x more on Epic Games Store than predecessor did on Steam

Epic today revealed some figures from its fledgling Epic Games Store. The Steam competitor isn’t looking quite so fledgling now though, with Epic boasting that an early exclusive title, Metro Exodus, had sold two and-a-half times more on Epic Games Store than previous title Metro: Last Light did on Steam.

“It’s about your games, not the store you sell it on,” stated Steve Allison, the head of Epic Games Store. “You deserve 88 per cent,” he added in reference to the store’s generous developer royalties.

Now, it must be noted that Metro: Last Light was released way back in 2013, and arguably the franchise has become a lot bigger since then with the ongoing success of the Metro Redux remasters of the first two titles in the series. Metro Exodus was more heavily promoted as well, and gained huge exposure from its E3 2017 reveal.

All that said, this is still a great achievement for a store that’s only been running a few months, and will give many the confidence that they spread their efforts across both stores – presuming that Epic isn’t about to offer you a juicy exclusivity bonus for your title.

Other numbers were also shared, this time in relation to the store’s promotion of a free game every two weeks (yes, that’s free games every fortnight from the people who make Fortnite). Subnautica was downloaded 4.5m times in the two weeks it was available for free, while current title Slime Rancher has also hit that figure and is still on offer, so should break 5m downloads.

Again these numbers show there’s significant activity around the store, though with 85m PC Fortnite players all having accounts to access the store, the potential for growth is huge. A key factor there is that many of those players have credit card details attached to their accounts from buying Fortnite content, significantly easing any friction in using the new store.

Epic also announced that it was bringing a wide range of new exclusive titles to the store, and that it was partnering with Humble Bundle to provide keys for the store, it’s first third-party key deal.

Read all our GDC 2019 coverage here.