The game works without adding more crap to my PC, why is the game adding more crap to my PC?




I do not want to know.

You've probably already done this. Those who have not, should.

Open an Explorer window by opening any folder, "This PC" from the start menu, or by pressing WindowsKey+E.

Press F10 to open the menu bar in your Explorer window. Click "Tools", then "Folder options...".



In Folder Options, go to the "View" tab. Under Advanced settings, untick the box labelled "Hide extensions for known file types". Click Apply.



You've done it. A great mystery has been revealed to you. Revel in that for a moment. Become aware of your breathing. Make sure your fly is zipped.

Open Returnal's installation directory.




The files we'll be working with are in the folder
Go on in there and find the file "Launcher.ini".



Open Launcher.ini in the text editor of your choice (Windows defaults to Notepad) and change the line
to



Save your changes (CTRL+S) and close the text editor.

Back in your Win64 folder, right-click Launcher.ini and go to "Properties". In the Properties window, tick the box labelled "Read-only", then click "Apply".



Go to the "Security" tab, then click "Advanced".



In Advanced Security Settings, click "Disable inheritance".



Click "Convert inherited permissions into explicit permissions on this object."



You now have a set of "Allow" rules; some have "Access" set to "Full control", some to "Read & execute". The number of rules you have depends on your system's configuration and the number of user accounts, so don't worry too much if your setup doesn't match mine, here.

Click an "Allow" rule with "Access" set to "Full control", then the "Edit" button.



Untick the box labeled "Write", then click "OK".



Repeat until all of your "Allow" rules have "Access" set to "Read & execute". When you're done, click "Apply".



You've now configured the game's launcher to skip the EOS installation step, and through file permissions, you've prevented the game or Steam from resetting this configuration.

Important note: Steam can no longer change Launcher.ini, but now neither can you. You'll need to go back into Advanced Security Settings and re-enable Write if you want to modify or delete "Launcher.ini".

The file we're forcibly removing is also in your Win64 folder, named "EpicOnlineServicesInstaller.exe".
It's about one-hundred and nine megabytes of stuff you do not need and will not use. We'll be removing it, and preventing Steam from downloading it again later.

For those who are used to this sort of thing: Make a new text document, delete the original file, and rename the new text document "EpicOnlineServicesInstaller.exe". Skip to the end of this section, after the pictures, smart guy.

For those who don't yet know how, here's a quick way, step-by-step, in excruciating detail:
Click the "EpicOnlineServicesInstaller.exe" file and press F2 to rename it. Press CTRL+A to quickly highlight the full file name and extension (You didn't skip the first section, did you?), then CTRL+C to copy it all.



You can cancel renaming the file, even if you've accidentally typed something in, by pressing Escape. Delete "EpicOnlineServicesInstaller.exe".

Right-click an empty space in your Win64 folder window and go to "New", then click "Text Document" from the flyout.



Again, press CTRL+A to select the full name and extension of your new text document.



This time, you'll press CTRL+V to paste the "EpicOnlineServicesInstaller.exe" name and extension. Press enter to apply the change.



If you do not get this warning, something's gone wrong. Make sure that you haven't renamed the "New Text Document.txt" to "EpicOnlineServicesInstaller.exe.txt", or something similar, and that you have file extensions unhidden.

If you do get this warning, continue being a menace to your system by clicking "Yes".

Now, as you did with "Launcher.ini" in the previous section, you'll be right-clicking your new empty "EpicOnlineServicesInstaller.exe", clicking "Properties", and disabling Write permissions for the file under the Security tab.

You now have an empty dummy file which Steam can't overwrite with the actual program. Good work. Pat on the back. We aren't done. :(

So, we have an unmodifiable Launcher configuration, and an unwritable empty file to block Steam from putting the installer back in the game's folder. However, this will not stop Steam from downloading the file again if there's an update which includes it, or if you manually verify the game's files. So, we'll be copying our dummy file into Steam's downloading folder to prevent this.

Steam will download updated files, or redownload files when they fail verification, to a subfolder of your Steam Library folder named "Downloading". The default location is This can change depending on where you have Steam installed and how you've configured your Steam Library folders.

In this folder, downloaded files are organized into subfolders named after their game's respective AppID. Returnal's AppID is 1649240. If there isn't a folder in your "Downloading" folder named "1649240", make one. Right-click an empty space in the folder's Explorer window, go to "New", then click "Folder" from the flyout.



Name the folder "1649240", then open it. From here, folder structure will match your game's installation directory.

Make another new folder, name it "Returnal", open it. In that folder, make another new folder, name it "Binaries", open it. In that folder, make another new folder, name it "Win64", open it.

Are we having fun yet? If your Steam Library folder has the following subfolders, yes.


Back in Returnal's Win64 folder (The one where the game's installed, not the empty one we just made) click on your dummy EpicOnlineServicesInstaller.exe, then press CTRL+C to copy it.

In the new Win64 folder (The empty one we just made, not the one where the game's installed), press CTRL+V to paste the copy of your dummy file. This copy may not inherit the file permissions we've set for the original, so double-check and adjust as needed. Steam can not overwrite the file, and will fail to download the program again. You may repeat this process for Launcher.ini, if you like.



This message of failure heralds your success. You are now unable to download updates or "Verify integrity of game files" for Returnal.

Shush, we're getting to it.

So, suppose a future update tries to touch any of our precious read-only files. Because our files are now intentionally configured for Steam to be unable to change them, this update will fail. On top of that, because we've put one or both of these files in the Downloading folder, Steam will simply cancel downloading any update containing these files once it tries to overwrite one of them.



If you're trying to re-download corrupted or missing files for Returnal using Steam's "Verify integrity of game files", this download will also fail, because the process is the same.

So, if you actually want a verification or update download to succeed, you'll need to move our unwritable files out of the way.

If you're in the habit of temporarily "deleting" files, sticking them in the Recycle Bin, you'll likely notice that with our unwritable files... you cannot. This is working as intended. Deleting the file counts as a write operation. Thankfully, moving the file does not.

So, when it comes time to download, you can quickly move our "Launcher.ini", our dummy "EpicOnlineServicesInstaller.exe", and our "1649240" folder, by simply clicking-and-dragging them onto the desktop (or anywhere else, really.)

Steam will delete the "1649240" folder (and therefore its subfolders) once it's moved the downloaded files out of it and into the game's installation directory. If you don't want to make new folders every time, make sure to move the "1649240" folder out of "Downloading".



If the download still fails, make sure you've moved the unwritable files out of both the Downloading and game installation folder's Win64 folder. Leaving an unwritable file in the Downloading Win64 folder results in the "Missing File Privileges" error during the download, while leaving one in the game installation's Win64 folder results in the error after the download.

When the download's all done, and the unwanted files are installed back in place, you can click-and-drag our files and folder back to where they go, overwriting any newly downloaded files.

If you want to find a game's AppID for yourself, they're in each game's Store Page URL. Steam recently started hiding the browser's address bar by default, so now we'll be revealing more unnecessary secrets.

In Steam's menu bar, click Steam, then Settings.



In the Settings window, click Interface, then tick the box labelled "Display web address bars when available".



Now, whenever you go to a game's Store Page, you can find the AppID toward the end of the URL in the address bar.

One further step you may want to take is not covered by this guide: Blocking connections to Epic Games' servers. Why is it not covered? Because somebody else already did it, and did it well.

https://gtm.steamproxy.vip/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2594056744

Redundancy can be funny, but not when I don't want to be redundant. :(

Unfortunately, Returnal does use Epic's servers for the Daily Challenges, Co-Op, and fallen Scouts. Blocking these servers will prevent these features from working. For some, that isn't a deal breaker. (I write Steam guides, you think I have friends to play co-op with? Pssh.)