Epic's new store has started a war with Steam, representing two titans duking it out for dominance.

Last week, UK-based video game publisher Deep Silver pulled its upcoming post-apocalyptic shooter Metro: Exodus from the Steam digital marketplace just two weeks before its February 15 release date. Instead, the game will launch exclusively on the Epic Games Store, a Steam rival.

The repositioning of a single game from one storefront to another represented two of the gaming world's tectonic plates grating against each other.

Steam, launched in 2003, is the most popular market for PC games and a vocal contingent of its users felt betrayed by the decision to pull Metro: Exodus after pre-sales had already begun. Epic is the deep-pocketed company that created the uber-profitable game Fortnite, and it licenses its proprietary Unreal Engine to countless titles, meaning it even makes money from Fortnite's competition. Now, Epic is challenging Steam for control over the distribution of downloadable PC games.