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Supported Launchers & Platforms

Detecting and aggregating games across Steam, Epic, GOG, Xbox, EA, Ubisoft, and local libraries

Supported Launchers & Platforms

Universal Game Launcher connects with all popular PC gaming storefronts and launcher clients installed on your system. Rather than managing fragmented, isolated libraries across different launcher interfaces, Universal Game Launcher automatically aggregates all your installed titles into a single, cohesive hub.

🔍 Local, Authoritative Detection

Universal Game Launcher inspects local, authoritative client records — official launcher manifests, system registry entries, SQLite databases, and package descriptors written by the official stores:

  • Zero Credential Handling: The app never prompts for passwords, executes web scraping, or accesses user tokens.
  • Offline Reliability: Installed games are discovered locally on disk without requiring active network connectivity.
  • Authentic Vector SVG Platform Icons: In both the Library sidebar and game showcase, platforms are badged with pixel-perfect vector SVGs (PlatformIcon.svelte) instead of generic glyphs.
  • Configurable Platform Sources: In Settings → Platforms and the Plugin Settings dialog, you can enable or disable specific storefronts, customize executable paths, and configure multi-drive scanning.

🎮 Supported Storefronts & Services (12 Platforms)

Managed via the consolidated Universal Platform Engine (platform-universal):

Platform Specification Detection Mechanism Launch Delegation Protocol Social & Achievements
Steam Parses libraryfolders.vdf and appmanifest_*.acf files across all mounted drives steam://rungameid/{appId} Yes
Epic Games Official .item manifests in %ProgramData%\Epic\EpicGamesLauncher\Data\Manifests\ com.epicgames.launcher://apps/{appId}?action=launch&silent=true (Default) or legendary launch <appName> (CLI) Yes
GOG Galaxy Local Galaxy SQLite database (galaxy-2.0.db) & Windows Registry goggalaxy://openGameView/{gameId} or direct executable launch Yes
Xbox / Microsoft Store XboxGames library volumes, MicrosoftGame.config, and appxmanifest.xml shell:AppsFolder\{PackageFamilyName}!App Yes
EA Desktop Local EA installer registry entries and directory structures origin2://game/launch?offerIds={appId} Yes
Ubisoft Connect Local Ubisoft registry and launcher configurations uplay://launch/{gameId}/0 Yes
Battle.net Blizzard installation product databases and system registry battlenet://{appId} Yes
itch.io The itch desktop app library (%APPDATA%\itch\apps) and receipt files itch://games/{gameId} or direct executable launch No
Amazon Games Amazon Games library SQLite manifests and install folders amazon-games://play/{appId} No
Rockstar Games Rockstar Games Launcher registry and manifests rockstar://launch/{appId} No
Standalone Executables User-added local executables, custom arguments, and working directories Native process execution No
EmulationStation Multi-console ROM directories organized via the ES-DE standard Direct emulator binary delegation or launcher No

🚀 Native Launcher Delegation & Alternate Backends

When launching, updating, or managing games from different stores, Universal Game Launcher strictly delegates actions to the official client or configured alternate providers:

  • Preserved Overlays & Cloud Sync: Official client overlays, cloud save synchronization, playtime tracking, friend lists, and achievement unlocks function identically to launching from the official store.
  • Epic Games Alternate Provider (Legendary CLI): The Epic Games integration defaults to the official Epic Games Launcher. If you prefer headless execution, faster launching, and independent cloud saves, you can enable Legendary integration in Settings → Plugin Settings and specify the path to your legendary.exe binary.
  • Safe State Transitions: If an update is required, the official launcher handles the secure package download without third-party intervention.

🕹️ EmulationStation Scaffolding & ROM Manifests

For retro and console libraries:

  • Directory Scaffolding: Automatically generates standard ES-DE folder layouts with systems.txt and systeminfo.txt.
  • Zip Extraction: Compressed ROM archives (.zip, .7z, .rar) are safely unpacked into dedicated <system>/<CleanTitle>/ cache directories with isolated saves/ folders.
  • Per-Game Manifests: Generates isolated rom.ini configuration files per game to preserve clean title mappings and custom emulator flags.

🗂️ Scanning & Managing Games

  1. Open the Library view (/library).
  2. Click the ↻ Scan button at the top of the left games list sidebar.
  3. Universal Game Launcher asynchronously inspects all enabled platform integrations and EmulationStation ROM folders in the background.
  4. Games are automatically organized into collapsible platform and console accordions with live game counts.
  5. Filter by platform, status (All, Installed, ★ Favorites), or search query in real time.

🛡️ Write Safety Invariant

Universal Game Launcher is completely non-invasive:

  • Zero External File Writes: Never writes to, modifies, or backs up external client files (such as Steam’s shortcuts.vdf or libraryfolders.vdf).
  • All custom tags, display names, platform attributions, and collections are saved strictly in our generic SQLite database (database.sqlite) backed by the in-memory Redis KV tier (mem_kv).

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