Dauntless is abandoning its launcher and migrating all player accounts to the Epic Games store. While the original client will still be available for a while, a full migration will take place later this year, after which you’ll need to have an Epic Games account if you want to keep playing.

The news came in an announcement made last night, in which developer Phoenix Labs said that Epic’s provision of full cross-play across PC and all major consoles (as well as mobile) for Fortnite matches the developer’s own vision for Dauntless – that “no matter where you were in the world or which platform you were playing on, you would be able to play with your friends.”

The announcement goes on to say that “leading up to launch, we will be converting all Dauntless accounts into Epic Games accounts,” and that players will be able to merge pre-existing accounts. All progress will carry over to Epic, allowing players to continue their adventure from where they left off. Information on how to do that will be provided in the weeks leading up to the Epic launch.”

The move is designed to coincide with the game’s console launch, which is scheduled for April 2019, but as yet there’s no word on exactly when the migration process will begin. Once all accounts have been migrated, the existing Dauntless patcher will be retired, meaning you probably won’t be able to reliably play or progress after the move.

The move coincides with another high-profile coup for the Epic Games store, as Deep Silver announced that Metro Exodus won’t release on Steam, in favour of the newer platform. Both Epic and Metro’s developers have received negative feedback in the wake of that announcement, as even Valve suggested that the move was “unfair for Steam customers.”

Dauntless’ move is arguably less impactful as no other third-party platform is affected, but given the game’s success last year, it’s another important arrow in Epic’s quiver.