How to have all your PC games organized in the same library (even if they are from different launchers) without dying trying

How many launchers of video games do you have installed on your computer? The answer will depend on each user, so I speak personally: five. I have Steam, Epic Games, GOG Galaxy, Xbox and Origin and some other game installed from each of them (to end up always playing ‘Lost Ark’ and little else). The point is that there is no way to uninstall them launchers and keep the games. No launchers, no party.

Steam has always reigned mightily in the world of PC gaming, but these days it’s not without its competitors: Epic Games, Ubisoft’s Uplay, EA’s Origin, Bethesda’s Bethesda Launcher (may it rest in peace), Activision-Blizzard’s Battle.net, Rockstar Launcher by Rockstar… Many launchers that fulfill the same function: launch the games we’ve bought.

The question, therefore, is obvious: Isn’t there a universal launcher that brings them all together?

An launcher to rule them all

The answer is “yes, but”, like everything in this life. It is possible to bundle all the games in a single service like Steam or GOG Galaxy, but that will not prevent us from having to have the launchers of each service installed. Why? Because the game has been installed from that launcher and is “linked” to it. Without the original launcher it is not possible to launch the game, plain and simple.

Steam allows you to add shortcuts of games purchased outside of Steam and launch them from your platform, but the launcher it must be installed and from Steam it will not be possible to do something as simple as, for example, updating the game. It is a shortcut, but it does not solve the ballot completely.

The same goes for GOG Galaxy, the CD Projekt Red launcher. The game has “official” integrations, namely GOG, the Epic Games Store, and Xbox Live, and community integrations for Origin, Steam, and Ubisoft Connect. that allows have (almost) all games in one placebut it does not prevent us from having to have the launcher of each service installed to update, save the game in the cloud, etc.

And so we could go on to infinity and beyond. A well-known and complete option is Playnite, which works with countless services (Steam, Epic, Origin, GOG, Battle.net, Uplay, Twitch, Bethesda, itch.io and many more through addons) and allows you to obtain more features through plugin. It is the most complete, without a doubt.but we return to the same thing: the launcher original must be installed to play.

The problem with launchers is that many functions of the games depend on it. Without going any further, and avoiding launching them, your list of online friends, social and online functions, patch notes, developer notices, all those kinds of things are implemented in the launchers. There are options, as we have seen, but it is not possible to get rid of them. launchers originals.

Playnite is, without a doubt, a good option. Somewhat tedious to use, but functional. The problem, obviously, is that we will be installing another launcher to agglutinate launchers. What can we do then? The most comfortable, simple, fast solution that allows you to forget about launchers is, neither more nor less, that a folder with shortcuts that we can pin to the Windows taskbar. For it:

1. If you want to keep your desktop uncluttered, delete the shortcut from the launchers from the desk.
2. Create a folder in a location you won’t move it from and put the shortcuts of all the games you have installed (and install in the future).
3. Right click > “Send to” > “Desktop (create shortcut)”.
4. On the shortcut that has appeared, right click > “Properties”.
5. Change the name and put something like “Games”.
6. Under “Destination”, add “explorer ” (with space) at the beginning. It should look something like this: “explorer C:UsersjoseDesktopTest”. Then click “Apply”.
7. Optionally, you can change the folder icon using one of the system icons. To do this, click on “Change icon”, type “imageres.dll” in the search box and select the one you want. You can also create your own icon if you dare.
8. Once you’ve done that, go back to the desktop shortcut, right click > “Pin to taskbar”.

That way we will have all games in one place and one click away. We will not get rid of launchersbut at least we won’t have to pay more attention to it when we go to play.