Video Games

Wuthering Waves launcher not opening in Epic Games Store: How to fix

Here’s how to preload Wuthering Waves despite Epic Games Store’s failures

Marco Wutz

Kuro Games

With Wuthering Waves releasing in just a few hours, PC players are trying to preload the game to get started right away once it’s unlocked. However, players getting the game through the Epic Games Store have been running into a big problem: The Wuthering Waves launcher isn’t starting.

Trying to start Wuthering Waves from inside the Epic Games Store platform or from the desktop shortcut created by downloading the launcher from Epic Games Store wields no results. Though Epic Games Store tells you that Wuthering Waves is running and your Windows Task Manager will confirm this, the launcher isn’t actually showing up for you to interact with.

Luckily, there’s a quick fix for the Wuthering Waves Epic Games Store launcher not working.

How to launch Wuthering Waves on Epic Games Store

Follow these steps to launch Wuthering Waves without a problem and preload the game:

  1. Locate the desktop shortcut you created while downloading Wuthering Waves from Epic Game Store.
  2. Right-click the desktop shortcut and select “Open file location” to access the file in which the launcher (named “launcher_epic”) is located.
  3. Find the executable that's simply named “launcher” in this file and double-click it to start the Wuthering Waves launcher, from where you can preload the game.
  4. Make sure to delete the old desktop shortcut and instead create one for the “launcher” executable instead so that you can quickly run the game in the future without having to go through this process again.
Screenshot from Microsoft Windows showing the Wuthering Waves launcher install location.
You'll need to start Wuthering Waves via "launcher" instead of "launcher_epic" to get it to work. / Microsoft

Alternatively, you can download a standalone launcher from the Wuthering Waves website. This will circumnavigate the Epic Games Store entirely. This will circumnavigate the Epic Game Store entirely. Check out the Wuthering Waves release times to make sure you’ve got your day planned out correctly and get an overview of the Wuthering Waves launch rewards awaiting you.

Published
Marco Wutz

MARCO WUTZ

Marco Wutz is a writer from Parkstetten, Germany. He has a degree in Ancient History and a particular love for real-time and turn-based strategy games like StarCraft, Age of Empires, Total War, Age of Wonders, Crusader Kings, and Civilization as well as a soft spot for Genshin Impact and Honkai: Star Rail. He began covering StarCraft 2 as a writer in 2011 for the largest German community around the game and hosted a live tournament on a stage at gamescom 2014 before he went on to work for Bonjwa, one of the country's biggest Twitch channels. He branched out to write in English in 2015 by joining tl.net, the global center of the StarCraft scene run by Team Liquid, which was nominated as the Best Coverage Website of the Year at the Esports Industry Awards in 2017. He worked as a translator on The Crusader Stands Watch, a biography in memory of Dennis "INTERNETHULK" Hawelka, and provided live coverage of many StarCraft 2 events on the social channels of tl.net as well as DreamHack, the world's largest gaming festival. From there, he transitioned into writing about the games industry in general after his graduation, joining GLHF, a content agency specializing in video games coverage for media partners across the globe, in 2021. He has also written for NGL.ONE, kicker, ComputerBild, USA Today's ForTheWin, The Sun, Men's Journal, and Parade. Email: marco.wutz@glhf.gg

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