Fortnite will debut on the subsequent era online game consoles as these machines launch this fall, in accordance to Epic Video games CEO Tim Sweeney.
In an interview with GamesBeat, Sweeney stated that the corporate is utilizing Unreal Engine 4 to adapt Fortnite to run on each the PlayStation 5 and the Xbox Collection X when these consoles debut late this 12 months. That’s essential for each consoles, as Fortnite has greater than 350 million customers throughout seven completely different platforms.
Over time, Epic Video games will migrate Fortnite over to the Unreal Engine 5, which Epic gave a glimpse of at this time with the discharge of a demo video. Unreal Engine 5 will debut in 2021. However Sweeney stated the transition from Unreal Engine 4, which first debuted in 2012, to Unreal Engine 5 received’t be that troublesome. This model is similar as the prevailing one, however Fortnite will be optimized to reap the benefits of the brand new {hardware} and options on next-gen consoles. Epic guarantees higher efficiency and visuals.
“We’re launching Fortnite on next-generation consoles this 12 months on UE4,” Sweeney stated. “We’re shifting it to UE5 over the course of subsequent 12 months. Fortnite will proceed to assist the seven platforms it helps now, plus the 2 new ones which have been introduced. We’ve to assist the sport on all {hardware}, and we’ve to try this with out sport builders ever having to construct any asset, any content material twice.”
Sweeney stated the remainder of the trade can piggyback on the pioneering work on Fortnite, which is a testbed for the Unreal Engine instruments.
Above: Shadows and lighting are the specialty of Unreal Engine 5.
Picture Credit score: Epic Video games
“Our objective for the reason that very early days has been to join all of the gamers throughout all of the platforms,” he stated. “We pioneered this in Fortnite, which was the primary to join Sony, Microsoft, Nintendo, Apple, Google units, each machine, and allow everybody to play collectively. We’ve taken that whole stack of on-line applied sciences and we’re opening it up to all builders, together with the nuts and bolts sport providers like matchmaking and information storage. But in addition the account system and the chums graph we constructed up for Fortnite, with greater than 350 million gamers throughout seven platforms, and greater than 2.2 billion social connections.”
He added, “That’s now open for everyone. You may piggyback on all of Epic’s efforts to construct up this multiplatform viewers and then contribute again to it by utilizing it in your sport, having your gamers add your mates to it. Everyone advantages collectively by increase this non-walled backyard model of issues which have existed on every platform and on Steam in a locked-down method prior to now.”
Epic stated it will assist cross-progression throughout console generations and platforms in order that participant accounts, development, and objects carry over. Epic intends to assist crossplay on all platforms, together with present and next-generation consoles.