I used those other means but would like to give them money for a fantastic game.

Remedy deserves the purchase though the game is fantastic, epic drama aside, but I hear ya.

Oh no not another launcher, the horror

This is obviously due to personal choices, so take everything I say here as things I care about - not necessarily that I expect everybody else to care about.

It's not "a different exe". It's got Epic's DRM - meaning it's tied to the Epic Store, its continuous service, etc. If they fold, I lose access to the games I have on it. In all fairness, I don't think they will fold any time soon but it still worries me.

With Steam not as much, for a couple reasons: they're bigger so slightly less likely to fold; they're not publicly listed so they answer to Gabe Newell and don't have any legal requirement to increase share value; they promote and put a lot of time, sweat and money towards Linux gaming; and their store is just generally better than Epic's.

Epic, on the other hand, is actively hostile to Linux gamers: you can't even play Fortnite on it, they have no native store/launcher; and they don't have any of the pros of Steam.

Furthermore, I already own more games than I will probably be able to play in my lifetime, so it's not like I'm "missing an opportunity" by skipping a game that's on the Epic store. :)

It's not that I dislike buying games from another store (I have quite a few from GOG and Itch), what I'm wary about is the loader - especially knowing that Epic is too buddy-buddy with Tencent and both are known to siphon unnecessary amounts of user data.

Look at the games Remedy have been making since splitting from Rockstar.

I really enjoyed Control and the Alan Wakes for the plot and narrative decisions. That’s who Remedy have become, story focused with emphasis on world building. MoCap actors, FMV segments, parallel world building via audio logs and journals, etc while keeping the lessons learned from the Max Payne series for the gameplay combat loops.

All the Max Payne games are mechanics centric; tight gunplay and bullet-time combat. They also have decent-to-solid plots, but I didn’t replay MP2 dozens of times because I wanted the Mona-Max arc’s dopamine hit, nor pathfinding through NYC apartment mazes. Nimble combat against formidable and fair AI is the core part of that series.

It wouldn’t be what you want it to be, and that’s okay that it’s in the past. Remedy have worked an EU and are leaning into that instead, and have done well consistently.

Clearly looked like Mr Door was meant to be Lance Reddick, IMHO... Sadly we lost him :(

How did you play the first game? It's not 10 years old yet.