According to The Verge, Epic Games is teaming up with Unity to bring games made using Unity’s engine directly into Fortnite starting next year. The partnership represents a major shift for Epic, which has historically required creators to use its own tools for Fortnite experiences. Currently, Fortnite has about 70,000 creators who’ve published nearly 200,000 “islands” or experiences, but Unity brings over 1.2 million monthly active developers into the mix. Epic CEO Tim Sweeney calls this the first real step toward his vision of an “open metaverse” where different game engines work together. The move could provide smaller developers with new monetization opportunities amid ongoing industry struggles and layoffs.
Why this matters
Here’s the thing: Fortnite has been trying to become more than just a battle royale game for years. It wants to be a platform, a social space, what Sweeney calls an “open metaverse.” But until now, it’s been a walled garden. You could only build Fortnite experiences using Epic’s own tools. This Unity partnership basically tears down one of the biggest walls.
Think about the numbers for a second. Fortnite has 70,000 creators. Unity has 1.2 million monthly active developers. Even if only 10% of Unity developers decide to bring their games to Fortnite, that would more than double the platform’s creator base overnight. That’s massive. And for Unity developers who’ve been struggling to find audiences? Suddenly they get access to Fortnite’s hundreds of millions of players.
The technical reality
Now, the technical side is fascinating. Sweeney admits that right now, you can’t take an existing Unreal Engine game and just drop it into Fortnite. In fact, he says Unity games will actually arrive in Fortnite before standalone Unreal Engine games do. That’s pretty ironic when you think about it – Epic’s own engine games can’t easily integrate with their flagship platform, but Unity’s can.
The reason this works is because of what Unity’s engine is designed to do: build once, run anywhere. Unity has been focused on cross-platform compatibility for years, while Unreal has traditionally been more about pushing graphical boundaries. So technically, Unity games are probably better positioned for this kind of integration anyway.
There’s also the commerce angle. Unity recently launched a commerce management platform that will now support Unreal Engine too. So developers building stores across platforms get more choice, whether they’re using Unity or Unreal. It’s all about breaking down walls between ecosystems.
Sweeney’s bigger vision
But here’s where it gets really interesting. Sweeney isn’t just talking about adding more games to Fortnite. He’s talking about turning Fortnite into something like a web browser for 3D experiences. He literally said there will be a day when you can “go to other sites that are completely controlled by other companies” from within Fortnite. Epic would make no revenue from them, have no commercial agreements – they’d just be like websites on the web.
That’s a radical departure from how platforms work today. Right now, every experience in Fortnite goes through Epic’s review process. Sweeney says that’ll continue for now to ensure content is “ratings-compliant and works adequately.” But eventually? He wants an open system where “anybody would be able to put anything anywhere.”
Look, we’ve heard “metaverse” talk for years, and most of it has been vaporware. But this Unity partnership feels different. It’s concrete. It’s happening next year. And it represents the first time two major competing game engines are actually working together to create something interoperable. As Sweeney put it, this is where “the rubber meets the road.”
The real test will be whether developers actually embrace this. Will Unity’s massive developer base see value in bringing their games to Fortnite? And will Fortnite players actually want to play those games? We’ll find out starting next year, but one thing’s clear: Fortnite’s evolution from game to platform just accelerated dramatically. You can check out Epic’s 2024 ecosystem review to see how far they’ve come, and learn more about Unity’s company vision to understand why this partnership makes sense for both sides.
