In a new blog post, the company outlined a suite of new features it will be adding to the store soon which will draw it in-line with competitors that have been doing similar things for years. In the short term, Epic plans to introduce parties that support both voice and text chat, as well as an improved social search function, a Do Not Disturb mode, and customisable player cards, too. Though Epic says these features are ‘coming soon’, there’s no date attached to the update at the time of writing. Since there’ll be no one designated host per party, you’ll be able to drop in or drop out of a party at any point, with shared controls among all teammates. This party system will come with a dedicated ‘party window’ from which you will be able to share your latest highlights, kick off a match with only a few friends in the group while being able to continue talking to your whole party, and more besides. Epic also plans to scrap the Whisper (read: DM) feature since it isn’t used much, though it wants to bring it back with “improved functionality” in the future. These features are being introduced as “a major priority” as Epic wants to include “more features that connect you to your friends and to the games you love”. That means, in the future, we can expect other features like Wishlists and Achievements to be added to the storefront, too. Epic has a lot of incentives to keep players on-board with its storefront; it was recently revealed that Epic Games Store gained over 52 million new users in 2020, and to capitalize on that, the company wants to ramp up exclusives, too. Surviving Mars is free this week on the Epic Games Store, and will shortly be replaced by The Fall.
