During the State of Unreal presentation at 2023’s Game Developers Conference (GDC), held last month, Fortnite publisher Epic unveiled tools and enhancements for its games creation platform Unreal Engine aimed at simplifying and streamlining the development process and creative output for both games and other media. All of these updates support Epic’s vision for the metaverse, as a platform that is supported by, and a hub for, user-generated or third-party content.

The latest upgrades also offer Fortnite creators more freedom. Since late 2018, players in Fortnite have been able to edit their own Islands through the in-game Creative Mode using pre-made Fortnite assets, which can then be shared with other players. Expanding on this idea, Epic launched the Unreal Editor for Fortnite (UEFN) into public beta during their latest GDC presentation, ten months after being announced in May 2022. This PC application allows users to develop Islands in Unreal Engine and publish them straight into the game, meaning users can import their own non-Fortnite assets and use Unreal Engine tools to create experiences beyond the typical gameplay and styles existing already. In this way, Fortnite is continuing its transition from just a game, to a platform that players use to reach multiple user-created worlds, similar to Roblox’s approach.

The new Fab marketplace, a unification of Epic’s existing segregated art and asset marketplaces, aims to bring together all types of creatives to enhance the generation and sharing of assets for Unreal Engine, as well as other development platforms, to make finding assets and creating worlds easier for new creators. Both the MetaHuman Animator and Procedural Content Generation (PCG) tools aim to bring down the time needed as well as some of the technical barriers required to develop characters and worlds. The consequences of this could be an uptick in the amount of content being made and distributed across Epic’s products.

Epic has made its development set appealing as well as attainable: The 88% revenue share for creators on Fab is competitive compared to Unity’s 70%; games can now be self-published to the Epic Games Store; and UEFN users can publish into Fortnite to be accessible to its entire player base.

These updates and announcements are a clear step towards Epic’s idea of the metaverse as a hub for player creation. Contrary to Roblox’s monetisation model, in which creators can charge users to access their experience and purchase items within them, Epic’s CEO Tim Sweeney has said this model is not in the current plans for Fortnite -  he wishes instead for users to be able to drop in and out of Islands without feeling discouraged by a financial commitment.

In addition, Sweeney wants to maintain engagement and immersion for players by sticking to plans not to introduce traditional adverts to Fortnite. Instead, Epic’s current method of having branded items and characters embedded into the game will continue, and brands will be able to develop their own Islands, supported by the release of UEFN. To further Epic’s vision, next steps to enhance the immersive aspect of Fortnite could include having Island servers, which players can drop in and out of with no time limit.