Rockstar has rolled out its own game launcher called Rockstar Games Launcher which brings together all Rockstar titles. And, the company is giving away GTA San Andreas for free to everyone who installs the launcher. Some of the games in the launcher will obviously require Social Club log in but the launcher itself has built-in cloud saves.
So, what happens to Rockstar games you already own? You can now access them directly from the Rockstar Games Launcher but games like Max Payne 3 and GTA V cannot be accessed from Steam anymore. So, if you wanna play GTA V or Max Payne 3, you need the company’s game launcher.
Not just games, the launcher also sells Shark Cards which have brought in millions of dollars for Rockstar ever since the release of GTA V.
This new launcher could indicate that the PC version of Red Dead Redemption 2 will be exclusive to Rockstar’s own store and not the Epic Games Store or Steam. Another benefit of the launcher for Rockstar is that they can implement a DRM framework in their games through the launcher to protect them from piracy and hacking. It will also help them in data compilation for GTA Online and RDR Online.
The Rockstar Games Launcher will be around 1 GB and is available for download on Windows from today.