Does Epic Games foresee the future of the metaverse on Fortnite?

In a recent interview with Fast Companythe CEO of Epic Games Tim Sweeney announced the establishment ofan Unreal Engine 5 editor dedicated to Fortnite and available to everyone that will allow creators to monetize their creations.

Half of the time players spend on Epic Games’ battle royale is attributed to special content created by other players. The new objective of the studio is then to offer a more complete editor which will bring a better experience to the players as well as to the creators.

“Fortnite Create mode is a set of tools that allows anyone to build their own Fortnite island. Half of Fortnite players’ game time is spent in content created by others, and the other half in Epic Games content. And that’s only the beginning. By the end of the year, we will be releasing the Unreal Engine editor for Fortnite with the full capabilities of the game engine open to everyone so anyone can build, code, and publish super high-quality content. directly on Fortnite without having to go through us.”

Epic Games has been offering its Unreal Engine 5 to everyone since last April, offering its share of simplified and royalty-free creative tools. With this new version dedicated to Fortnitethe development of a real virtual world seems to be on the way.

Games and the Metaverse

With this new announcement, Epic Games’ new goal with fortnite is clear : the battle royale must enter the service game market and adapt to the metaverse. For Tim Sweeney, platforms like Roblox now offer multiple experiences to players like app stores do, and these games then create a new economy:

“Our goal is to make Fortnite a real engine that can attract consumers in the same way that app stores, consoles and Steam can attract users. Now people also see Fortnite and Roblox as a way to reach users. At the same time, we are building an economy that will provide the necessary support to content creators who build projects around their creations and earn income from this commerce that comes from users playing their content.”

Thus, it would not be impossible to see Fortnite become a real bearer of the metaverse in the years to come. The game already offers a number of collaborations with real events or personalities, reducing the border between the real world and the virtual world. Where much of the metaverse seems to be growing around virtual reality, a technology that not everyone has access to yet, Epic Games’ battle royale could then be the standard-bearer for a different metaverse and accessible to everyone.