Deep Silver has partnered with Epic to exclusively launch the PC version of Metro Exodus on the Epic Games Store, and will discontinue sales of the game on Steam later today (though all existing pre-orders will still be honored).

Epic's poaching of Metro Exodus, a highly-anticipated game among the PC games audience, is just the latest salvo in an ongoing war of digital storefronts in which Steam is the one to beat.

It's only been a few weeks since Epic struck up a similar deal with Ubisoft to bring The Division 2 and a handful of future releases to its fledging marketplace rather than Steam -- although Ubisoft's roster will also be available for purchase Uplay Store. 

Although it only launched last December, the Epic Games Store turned heads by offering developers an 88 percent share of revenue as opposed to the standard 70 percent, prompting some creators to pull their games from Steam in favor of Epic's new marketplace. 

Epic CEO and founder Tim Sweeney claimed today's deal was underpinned by the company's commitment to offering a greater revenue split, and Deep Silver CEO Dr. Klemens Kundratitz echoed his assertions. 

"Epic's generous revenue terms are a game changer that will allow publishers to invest more into content creation, or pass on savings to the players," Kundratitz commented. "By teaming up with Epic we will be able to invest more into the future of Metro and our ongoing partnership with series developer 4A Games, to the benefit of our Metro fans." 

Metro Exodus will eventually return to Steam on February 14, 2020, but the company was still unimpressed with the deal and voiced its frustration in an update on the game's Steam store page. 

"Later today, sales of Metro Exodus will be discontinued on Steam due to a publisher decision to make the game exclusive to another PC store," reads the update. "The developer and publisher have assured us that all prior sales of the game on Steam will be fulfilled on Steam, and Steam owners will be able to access the game and any future updates or DLC through Steam. 

"We think the decision to remove the game is unfair to Steam customers, especially after a long pre-sale period. We apologize to Steam customers that were expecting it to be available for sale through the February 15th release date, but we were only recently informed of the decision and given limited time to let everyone know."