Back in mid-May, GOG, the CD Projekt-owned DRM-free games marketplace, announced the ambitious overhaul of its Galaxy launcher. At that point, the site encouraged folks to sign up to the closed beta, though a small portion of those who signed up were also given access to a technical alpha a few days ago. Now, the closed beta is live for everybody that signed up.
The biggest selling point of Galaxy 2.0 is its ability to essentially be the hub of folks' game collections. It imports not just the games you have on other platforms, but also things like achievements and time played. As the site itself describes it:
Your Games.
Import all your games from PC and consoles, build and organize them into one master collection.
Install and launch any PC game you own, no matter the platform.
Keep track of all your achievements, hours played and games owned.
Customize your library by filtering, sorting, tagging, and adding your own visuals like game backgrounds or covers.
Your Friends.
See your friends’ cross-platform achievements, game time milestones and recently played games.
Compete on leaderboards and see who’s the master collector, completionist or spends the most time playing.
Your Privacy.
Your personal data will never be shared with third parties.
We’re not spying on data from your computer.
With a single click, you can remove imported games and friends data from our servers.
More
Connect more platforms and add new features with open-source integrations.
All customizations and changes to your library are saved in the cloud and synced between all your devices.
Save any view like a customized library or favorite games and friends to access them instantly.
Your GOG Client.
The best way to run and update your GOG games.
Use features like cloud saving, in-game overlay, multiplayer & matchmaking, rollbacks and more.
The client is not required to play your DRM-free GOG games.
Since this is a beta, there are obviously some rough edges and known issues to be aware of:
In addition to your GOG account, you can currently connect your Xbox Live, Battle.net, Epic Games Store, Origin, PlayStation Network, Steam, and Uplay accounts to Galaxy 2.0. Be advised that not all features are available for all integrations currently, and capabilities like importing friends and sending cross-platform messages are not supported in this current build. Community-made integrations - which need to be added manually - will also be available at a later date.
You are however able to import games and launch them - which will launch the relevant client, depending on the platform -, as well as sort via tags added and ratings (out of five stars), platform (GOG, Steam, Uplay, etc.), operating system or console, name, activity, or whether the games are installed or not installed. There's additionally a sorting option which separates your library of games depending on the platform they're on, so you can more easily tell which client will be launched.
Speaking of games, you'll be able to customize how their names appear in your library. That means you can at long last get rid of those ™ and ® symbols if you find them annoying. Furthermore, you'll be able to customize the covers and banners for your games. In other words, if a game has a missing image in tile view - or you just don't like it -, you can simply browse for another one that you find more appropriate.
Galaxy 2.0 also includes bookmarks, which do exactly what they sound like they would. Whether you're on the page for a game in your library, or a game in the store, you can click the bookmark icon and it'll appear in the sidebar. Tracking of discounts is an upcoming feature, so it's not in this version yet.
Though perhaps a feature not quite as big as the others but still worth mentioning is the actual background of the app. What it pulls its background from is the latest game you visited in your library. For example, if you visit Diablo which has a predominantly dark red-accented page, that's what will be carried over when you navigate to other sections like Recent or Activity.
On the subject of the Recent tab, it has both sorting options for a general summary or historical graphs which will show you when different games were added, achievements earned or hours played. You'll also be able to sort this by day, week, or month. This level of customizability is also available for things like friend leaderboards
Folks are still able to sign up to the closed beta at this link, though be advised that invites are sent on a "first come, first served" basis. Meanwhile, feel free to check out the screenshot gallery below to get a better idea about Galaxy 2.0.
What do you think about Galaxy 2.0? Sound off in the comments below!
Gallery: GOG Galaxy 2.0 Closed Beta
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