2K removes the pointless launcher in Civilization 6 and announces that Civilization 7 will never be launched twice without reason.

PC gaming is plagued by horrible supplementary launchers. From the crappy EA app, to the useless Ubisoft Connect and all the way to the digital wasteland that is the Microsoft Store. The 2K launcher is one of the most bizarre examples of this form. The 2K launcher is rarely seen (because it is only required for seven games), but it does nothing more than force you to click on a second button every time you launch some 2K games (not all). It can also cause performance issues for these games, like slowing down superheroes in Marvel's Midnight Suns.

It seems that 2K has finally woken up to the futility of their game. In a "quick" update regarding Civ 6 posted to Reddit by 2K community manager sar_firaxis, he revealed that "Earlier today the 2K Launcher was removed from Steam with plans to remove it on Epic soon." In the same post sar_firaxis confirmed that "Civ 7 WILL NOT use the 2K Launcher."

The change was made without explanation, but the general reaction was relief. "Thank goodness. I am tired of having a half-dozen launchers on my PC in addition to Steam," wrote Graymaven, while Snownova said: "Hallelujah!" Praise to Sid!

"To be fair, a lot of us circumvented the launcher altogether," user darthreuental pointed out. GardenSquid1 said, "I have been circumventing the launcher so long I forgot it existed." Darthreuental said that "a lot of us have circumvented the Launcher entirely," while GardenSquid1 stated, "I've been circumventing it so long, I forgot it was there."

Human-Law1085 asked "What happens with DirectX 11/DirectX 12?" and the thread confirms this important point. This was one of the few options that the 2K launcher offered. Modo44 responded by pointing out that this decision can now be made via Steam. "Click Play in the Steam client and you'll get a popup asking for your selection."

It's good to see 2K putting some thought into their decisions. It's understandable for publishers to want players to launch their game from their own platform, and it is probably a good idea for Steam to have some competitiveness, but many of these launchers are more about pride than anything that's actually useful to players. The 2K launcher, in particular, is arguably the most arbitrary. It's comforting that Civ 7 players won't have their enjoyment of the game hampered by a useless secondary launcher. Let's hope 2K follows suit with its other titles and that other publishers (*cough* EA*splutter* Ubisoft*) do the same.