Hybrid Launcher 1.2.3

Hybrid Launcher 1.2.3 has a new logo: a white game controller shaped like an H, on a red tile. If you already have 1.2, the app offers this update by itself a few seconds after it starts.

Install: download HybridLauncher-1.2.3-win-x64.zip below, extract it anywhere and run HybridLauncher.exe. Windows 11 (or an up-to-date Windows 10), 64-bit.

✨ New

• New logo everywhere. The window, the taskbar, the tray icon, the start page, the tour and HybridLauncher.exe itself show the new controller H. The small sizes (16 to 48 px) are drawn on their own, with thicker lines, so the icon stays sharp in the tray and the taskbar.

Full history: CHANGELOG

Hybrid Launcher 1.2.2

Hybrid Launcher 1.2.2 makes cloud saves work well with several clouds at once (OneDrive, MEGA and a folder), fixes Start with Windows and explains errors better. If you already have 1.2, the app offers this update by itself a few seconds after it starts.

Install: download HybridLauncher-1.2.2-win-x64.zip below, extract it anywhere and run HybridLauncher.exe. Windows 11 (or an up-to-date Windows 10), 64-bit.

✨ New

• Remove the custom folder. Settings → Cloud saves → A folder of your choice has a Remove button: the folder stops being used and is forgotten (the saves already in it stay there).
• Errors say what to check. Every red message now has a Possible causes line under it (no connection, a file in use, a disconnected drive, a full disk…) and a Troubleshooting link to the matching section of the new troubleshooting guide.
• Quieter cloud saves. No more green message after every upload: the game's Cloud button says Synced. A message shows only when something went wrong, in red, and says which cloud missed the saves (for example in OneDrive but not in MEGA yet) and why.

🐞 Fixed

• Start with Windows did nothing (#3). Recent Windows 11 builds skip a startup entry that is not marked as allowed in Windows' Startup apps, and Hybrid Launcher never wrote that mark. It does now, keeps the entry pointing at the copy you run (after moving the folder or unpacking a new version elsewhere), and its toggle shows Off when Windows has it turned off. If it was on in an earlier version, 1.2.2 fixes the entry the first time it starts. The icon also comes back if the taskbar was not ready yet when Windows started the app.
• "Synced" when the saves were not in the cloud, and saves not sent after playing. For games that keep one saves folder per account (Marvel's Spider-Man 2 keeps one per Steam account that ever played on the PC), Hybrid Launcher could watch an old account's folder that never changes. It now follows the folder the game writes in, and looks again before each game and after it closes (a folder you picked yourself is never changed).
• A cloud that does not answer no longer stops everything. When MEGA hung on the network, the cloud menu took seconds to open, the cloud button got stuck or read "No saves folder", and Play waited. Now each MEGA request has a time limit, a cloud that does not answer is left for the next sync while the others work as usual, uploads go to every cloud at once, and the button says "Cloud not reachable" instead. With several clouds, "Synced" now means that every one of them holds the saves.
• The cloud menu opens at once. The older copies are read in the background and fill in when the cloud answers.
• A game could wait 45 seconds at Play and then start without its saves in every cloud. With OneDrive and MEGA both in use, a game whose saves were only in one of them had to send them to the other before starting; big saves (Cyberpunk 2077, 80 MB) never made it in time, so every Play waited and MEGA never got them. Now Play only packs the saves as they are and the game starts at once (Cyberpunk: 2 seconds instead of 45); the saves go up while you play.
• Quitting right after a game no longer drops its upload. When saves are still on their way to the cloud, Hybrid Launcher closes its window at once and quits when they are there (three minutes at most).
• OneDrive could miss an upload. Two uploads a few seconds apart (for example after a short game) could find a file OneDrive was still sending, and that copy stayed out of OneDrive until the next sync. Hybrid Launcher now waits a moment and tries again (Google Drive and other sync apps too).

Having a problem? The new troubleshooting guide covers the usual errors.

Full history: CHANGELOG

Hybrid Launcher 1.2.1 · Smart HDR fix

Hybrid Launcher 1.2.1 keeps Smart HDR on for the whole game, also for games that start through a launcher. If you already have 1.2, the app offers this update by itself a few seconds after it starts.

Install: download HybridLauncher-1.2.1-win-x64.zip below, extract it anywhere and run HybridLauncher.exe. Windows 11 (or an up-to-date Windows 10), 64-bit.

🐞 Fixed

• Smart HDR turned off while some games were still running. Games that start through a launcher exe and then run another exe in a sub-folder, such as Gears of War: E-Day and other Xbox Game Pass games, or many Unreal games, were seen as closed when the launcher exited: HDR went off and Stop could not close them. Hybrid Launcher now follows the game's whole folder, so HDR stays on until the game itself closes.
• Smart HDR now works however the game is started. A game with Smart HDR started from the Xbox app, Steam or a shortcut turns HDR on too, not only one started with Play.

Full history: CHANGELOG

Hybrid Launcher 1.2.0 · Glass and fixes

Hybrid Launcher 1.2 gives the game page a new launch bar, shows an Update button when a new version is out, and makes OptiScaler install on every Windows, whatever its language and regional format. If you already have 1.1, the app offers this update by itself a few seconds after it starts.

Install: download HybridLauncher-1.2.0-win-x64.zip below, extract it anywhere and run HybridLauncher.exe. Windows 11 (or an up-to-date Windows 10), 64-bit.

✨ New

• A new launch bar. On a game's page, the bar with Play, the play time and the buttons is now a floating pane of frosted glass with rounded corners, a little inside the banner. Its light blur keeps the shapes and colours of the game's art, and a neutral dark tint keeps the text readable on any picture. The fade at the bottom of the banner is softer, so the art shows more.
• An Update button in the title bar. When a newer version of Hybrid Launcher is out, a small blue Update button appears beside Minimize, and stays there until you install it, even if you chose Later. One click opens the update.

🐞 Fixed

• OptiScaler would not install with some Windows regional formats. With a format Windows has only in Unicode (Hindi, Bengali, Tamil, Punjabi, Georgian, Armenian, Amharic and others), every install (stable, nightly or a custom build) stopped at once with "1 is not a supported code page". The setup script's output is now read in the code page Windows really uses for it, and in UTF-8 if that one is unknown.
• Every other feature is kept out of the same kind of problem. Whatever the regional format in Windows (another calendar such as Thai or Persian, other digits, separators changed in Control Panel), the app shows dates and numbers in US English, British English or Italian, the formats it is tested in.

Hybrid Launcher 1.1.0

Hybrid Launcher 1.1 lets you keep only the features you need, adds custom upscaler dlls for OptiScaler, game renaming and two new dark themes. If you already have 1.0, the app offers this update by itself a few seconds after it starts.

Install: download HybridLauncher-1.1.0-win-x64.zip below, extract it anywhere and run HybridLauncher.exe. Windows 11 (or an up-to-date Windows 10), 64-bit.

✨ New

• Choose what you need, at the first start. Before the welcome tour, a sheet over the window asks which features to keep: Everything, No achievements, OptiScaler + ReShade, Only OptiScaler or Just a launcher, each with its icons, a live preview of a game's page (launch bar and tabs) and a switch per feature for your own mix. What you leave out is only hidden: nothing is installed or removed. The tour then talks only about what you kept. → Getting started
• Settings → Features → Choose features opens the same picker any time.
• Settings → About shows the full version, release candidates included.
• Rename a game. Right-click it in the list or the library → Rename…. The new name shows everywhere in the app (list, library, game page, messages) and the search finds both names. The game keeps its store name underneath, so the OptiScaler wiki, PCGamingWiki and the store pages still find it. Empty the name to go back.
• Custom DLLs (OptiScaler nightly, end of October 2026). Use any FSR or DLSS upscaler dll you want, or a DLSSG replacement, next to the ones the game or the driver gives you, without replacing any file. A new card in the OptiScaler tab keeps them in one shared folder, grouped in entries: each entry has a name (the one OptiScaler's menu shows) and can hold an FFX upscaler for DX12 (ffx) and Vulkan (ffx_vk), a DLSS runtime (dlss) and a DLSSG replacement (dlssg). Add dlls and choose each one's name and kind, move a dll to another entry, rename or delete it; the dll OptiScaler will load is marked. A switch per game copies the entry into OptiScaler's own custom folder (OptiScaler\custom next to the renamed dll); pick it in OptiScaler's upscaler or FG list. Renaming an entry renames it in every game, and OptiScaler.ini settings that picked it follow the new name. A folder already laid out for OptiScaler, or an old Extra dlls\4.0.3 folder, can be added as it is. Uninstalling OptiScaler takes the files out too. → User guide, OptiScaler
• Two new colour themes: Dark and Venom. Dark is a plain near-black background with a soft silver accent, Venom a deep purple night. Both are always dark.

🧹 Changed

• The colour themes Neon city, Toxic, Crimson, Ocean, Amber and Graphite are gone. If you used one, the app switches to Hybrid (Graphite to Dark).
• The launch bar's HDR and Cloud buttons show a plain coloured icon, like the folder buttons beside them: the sun in an amber-to-pink sweep for Smart HDR, the cloud in blue while your saves sync.

🐞 Fixed

• The game list's search box no longer takes the focus (and looks clicked) after you leave the Downloads page, or any page opened from a button rather than from the list.

Hybrid Launcher 1.0.0

Welcome to Hybrid Launcher! 🍕

This is the first public version: a free Windows app that puts your games in one place and helps you install the mods that make them run and look better. It is a launcher and a mod tool in one window, built for people who already know a little about PC modding and want less juggling between programs and folders.

New here? Getting started takes five minutes: download, extract, run, and the app finds your games by itself.

---

Install: download HybridLauncher-1.0.0-win-x64.zip below, extract it anywhere and run HybridLauncher.exe. Windows 11 (or an up-to-date Windows 10), 64-bit.

🎮 Your games, in one place

• One library for Steam, Epic Games, GOG, Xbox / Game Pass and any game or folder you add yourself. Covers, play time, achievements, pins, search and filters, grouped by store or all together. → The library
• A page for every game, with Play, last played and play time, trailers and store details, reviews, HowLongToBeat, the fixes PCGamingWiki knows about, your links and notes. → A game's page
• Direct downloads. Sign in to Steam, Epic or GOG (optional) to see everything you own and download it from here, with pause, resume and updates that fetch only what changed. → Downloads and accounts
• Cloud saves on OneDrive, MEGA, a folder of your choice, or several at once, with a history to go back to. → Cloud saves

⚡ Mods, made easy

• OptiScaler. Pick Stable, Nightly or your own custom build; new versions are fetched from GitHub by themselves, and every version you install is saved and listed, so you can switch back in one click. A quick panel holds the settings you change most, and profiles let you reuse a setup across games. Installation always goes through OptiScaler's own setup script, with your answers filled in. → OptiScaler
• ReShade, RenoDX and Luma, through their own installers and releases, with the RenoDX or Luma mod for the game suggested when one exists. → ReShade, RenoDX and Luma
• Smart HDR. Turn it on for a game, and Windows HDR switches on when the game starts and off when it closes. → A game's page

✨ And also

• My PC: your graphics card, processor, memory and drives, your displays, and the upscaler and frame-generation versions your graphics driver provides. → My PC
• Custom achievements with a pop-up you design, quick-access shortcuts per game, controller support, tray mode, start with Windows, English and Italian. → Settings
• It updates itself: it checks for a new version and asks once before updating. → Updates
• One-click bug reports from Settings → About, with personal details taken out of the log first. → FAQ and troubleshooting

---

📜 License

Hybrid Launcher is free and open source under the GNU GPL v3. Fork it, change it, share it: forks and unofficial builds just credit this project, as written in NOTICE.md.

Thank you for trying it. Questions, ideas and collaborations are welcome, see Get in touch.