2K explains on its support page that on November 18, the 2K launcher was removed from every game that used it on Steam and Epic, and a second update went out on November 25 to ensure that it was truly removed on Steam. And yes, that includes special beta launchers like the one you got for Civilization 5.

As of November 25, the 2K launcher is no longer required in any 2K published games on either Steam of Epic Games Store.

“As of November 18, 2024, the 2K Launcher has been removed from every game that used it on Epic and Steam. Additionally, we also removed the “2K Launcher Beta”, a completely separate launcher, from Sid Meier’s Civilization V.

It had already been announced, but now the step has been taken: Take-Two has had the unpopular 2K Launcher removed from all computers.

Good news for PC gamers - the 2K Launcher is no more, making it a little less frustrating to play 2K games on Steam and Epic.

BioShock, Mafia and Civilization publisher 2K has officially shut down its PC games launcher and removed the platform from all of its games. Announced in a blog post on Tuesday, 2K said the launcher has now been removed from every game that used it on Steam and Epic Games Store.

Borderlands and Civilization publisher 2K Games has quietly done something very cool and good: The company has removed the need to use its 2K PC launcher from all of its games, and sunset the software completely.

K Games has pulled its launcher from all its PC games as part of a “complete sunset” of the software, which means PC gamers can now launch all 2K games directly in Steam. The 2K Launcher was forced upon players of the company’s PC games,

Among all the unnecessary PC game launchers forced on us over the years, 2K Games’ version easily ranked among the very worst – when it was not clunky or broken all by itself, it always found ways to prevent you from enjoying your favorite games the way you wanted to.