Earth Defense Force 6 players on Steam will only need to sign into Epic once, say publishers in apology for "lack of advance notice"

Earth Defense Force 6 players on Steam aren’t happy about having to sign into the Epic Games Store, it seems. The latest entry in the co-op ant-control shooter launched yesterday, and critics reckon it's a decent time. Still, it’s currently sitting at an angry red 'mostly negative' on Steam. In response, D3PUBLISHER have put out an apology statement, reassuring players that this third-party log in will only be required once.

"For this game, to enhance cross play and online functionality. Online play requires signing in to your Epic Games account. We apologize for the lack of advance notice," reads the statement. "Signing in to your Epic Games account is required the first time you play online. Usually, once you sign in for the first time, you will not need to sign in again." It then goes on to give helpful instructions for creating a free Epic account.

That "lack of advance notice" part seems to be key. While the game’s Steam page has now been updated to show that the game requires an Epic Online Services account for online play, D3PUBLISHER neglected to inform players beforhand. Personally, I feel it’s worth everyone signing up for Epic anyway, because free things are nice, but it does seem like the sort of thing it would have been triflingly easy for the publisher to be transparent about instead of apologising after the fact.

This doesn't mean it's likely any less disheartening for the developers, however, and I do often wonder about the logistics of having two seperate user review categories on Steam so these kind of issues don't spill over into tarnishing the perception of a game's actual quality. Although, even typing this now, I can sense how utterly naive that probably sounds. No-one wants double the clown emojis.

This is the first title in the Earth Defense Force series to require such a third party login. It is not the first in the series to require that you kill an alarming number of big ants, however. I quite liked Earth Defense Force 5 when I played it for review. "A thoroughly confident and largely successful game that seems solely designed for you and some mates to laugh with it, at it, and at yourselves until the frogs come home," wrote I. "It’s camp, sure, but as Susan Sontag put it, 'Oh no! The bugs, they’re everywhere! The frogs! They’re too big!'" I have since learned that quote was anachronistic, however. It was actually John Waters.