Epic Games is teaming up with arguably its biggest game development rival, Unity, to bring to market games built using Unity’s engine. FortniteThe change will mean that Unity games can sit alongside Epic’s experiences as well as those created by third-party developers using the Unreal editor, Fortnite – and that opens the door to a lot more games available to play Fortnite,
“Just like in the early days of the web, we believe companies need to work together to build the open metaverse in a way that’s interoperable and fair,” Epic Games CEO Tim Sweeney said in a statement. “Working with Unity, we’re helping developers create fun games, reach larger audiences, and find success.”
This change represents a significant step forward in Epic’s long-standing vision of transformation Fortnite In an open metaverse, it’s a big 3D social space with a huge number of experiences to participate in with your friends. Epic has been on this path for years Fortnite By focusing more on creator-created experiences and making browsing those experiences in the Fortnite lobby feel more like scrolling YouTube. You can also view experiences on the web – and buy new ones Fortnite Even costumes in your browser.
Now, Fortnite is a closed ecosystem, meaning creators can only create games for the platform using Epic’s tools, cannot put those games into the Unreal Engine to easily bring them to other platforms, or bring experiences built on other engines FortniteBut even in 2023, Tim Sweeney was telling The Verge How much he believed that the future of interoperable game engines was key to his vision.
Epic has had some success with the expansion Fortnite In a battle royale wider than, roblox-An ecosystem with games from external creators. As of the end of last year, it had a total of 70,000 creators who created approximately 200,000 “islands” or FortniteWords for experiences. But the Unity editor, which is designed to help developers build their games once and run them on multiple platforms, is more than 1.2 million Monthly Active Users. Even a small portion of those developers are bringing their own games. Fortnite Can add a lot to the stage.
The plan is to allow Unity games to come Fortnite Next year, Unity President and CEO Matt Bromberg explains The Verge.
The partnership potentially offers developers another potential opportunity to find an audience and monetize their games, which could be a lifeline for smaller developers amid continued industry strife and layoffs. It can consolidate even more power FortniteWhich is already a giant. But Swinney actually imagines a world that Fortnite It’s much more decentralized – like the open web.
,Fortnite“There’s still this big thing that’s completely run by Epic,” says Sweeney. “But there will come a day when you can, from that program, as it’s currently called FortniteVisit other sites that are completely controlled by other companies. We have nothing to do with them. We don’t earn any revenue from them. We do not have any commercial agreement with them. They’re just like websites on the Web.” Today’s news with Unity is the first opportunity to “rubber meet the road” of those engines working together.
For now, no matter what creator makes Fortnite experience of using FortniteSweeney says that with the tool or Unity, there will be a review process to make sure it is “rating-compliant and works adequately.” But in the future, “as it evolves into a completely open system, we’ll only have reviews for things that we host, and anyone will be able to put anything anywhere, and people will be able to browse it like you do in a web browser today.”
Sweeney says that allowing Unity games would “significantly expand the developer base”. “The Challenge of Content Creation Fortnite Today you’re starting from scratch.” You cannot currently take an Unreal Engine game and deploy it in Fortnite – This is something Epic is aiming for with Unreal Engine 6, which is likely years away. Ironically, Sweeney says, “publishing Unity games Fortnite Will be the first to publish a standalone Unreal Engine game Fortnite,
There’s also a second component to today’s news: Unity will bring support for Unreal Engine to the commerce management platform announced last month, which lets developers manage their digital storefronts across multiple platforms from inside the Unity engine. At the time it was introduced as a way to make it easier to deal with the complexities of various storefronts and payment processors.
Bromberg says that bringing support for Unreal Engine to the platform gives developers “more options about how to create stores and manage those stores.” “Ultimately, I think the thing Tim and I couldn’t agree on more strongly is that having more options and more spaces where developers can build things and giving them more control over their own destiny is the most important thing we can do to help the gaming ecosystem.”