Epic Video games launched its first Fortnite ecosystem 12 months in overview for 2024, and it has loads to have fun.
Epic mentioned Fortnite UEFN (Unreal Editor for Fortnite) paid out $324 million to creators in 2024. The variety of creators within the ecosystem practically tripled to 70,000, they usually revealed greater than 198,000 islands (video games/experiences).
These islands are getting visitors too, as practically 60,000 islands had been performed per day on common. And 70+% of gamers play each creator-made video games and Epic-made video games like Battle Royale.
Common gamers in creator-made video games was up yearly throughout the board in 2024, with each day energetic gamers up 15%; complete hours performed up 5%. And there was significant development in non-combat recreation genres.
Extra particulars
The creator neighborhood continues to develop at an incredible tempo, with the variety of creators practically tripling from 24,000 in 2023 to 70,000 creators in 2024. The variety of islands revealed additionally doubled to a complete of 198,000 in 2024, together with 137,000 islands created in UEFN.
Whereas engagement varies month-to-month as a consequence of seasonality, the typical variety of gamers partaking with creator islands on a each day, month-to-month, and annual foundation has elevated throughout the board this 12 months, with common each day gamers up 15% in 2024.
Epic mentioned it’s been inspiring to see extra creators succeeding within the Fortnite ecosystem. A complete of $352 million was paid to creators in 2024, up 11% when measuring March-December time durations of 2023 to 2024.
In 2024, gamers spent 5.23 billion hours taking part in video games made by creators—a quantity that represents 36.5% of complete Fortnite playtime and continues to rise. This marks a 5% improve from the 4.98 billion hours in 2023.
These numbers are buoyed by significant development in recreation genres that don’t characteristic fight, like social roleplay, celebration video games, deathruns, and horror. To date in January 2025, any such selection content material has made up greater than 30% of time spent in creator-made experiences, a rise of practically 50% from the identical time interval final 12 months.
New options and units
In 2024, Epic improved the capabilities of what creators can construct with UEFN with the launches of the First Individual Digicam gadget, new UI instruments and HUD controls, Enter Triggers, Proximity chat, Persistence, Customized NPCs, and plenty of extra impactful options.
Within the Creator Portal, Epic rolled out new methods to know a creator’s viewers, with enhancements to analytics and metrics about your payouts, your participant base and the introduction of island satisfaction information. Epic additionally launched Creator Profiles to assist gamers discover all of related islands in a single place, and Favourite a Creator that can assist you construct audiences inside Fortnite.
Beloved IPs got here to UEFN and Fortnite Inventive in 2024, enabling you to create revolutionary video games and experiences with official The LEGO Group, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, and Fall Guys property and gameplay units. This initiative allows you to develop genuine industrial video games utilizing world class IP with out getting misplaced in contracts or negotiations, and is enabled with a single settlement.
This 12 months, Epic’s highlighted islands included the ARPG Fort Knight Legend by Love-is-Actual, pushed the boundaries of Verse UI, Verse Persistence, and RPG components to ship a big and thrilling expertise.
One other was Havoc Resort 2 [Roguelike] by TeraCreators, which set the usual for roguelike PVE in Fortnite, mixing Customized UI, RPG components, and retention mechanics to interact gamers past roleplay and tycoon genres.
There was Lumberjack Heroes by ItsJacky, showcased the ability of UEFN with its customized UI and interesting gameloop. The island’s depth of play impressed different creators to push the bounds of Tycoon-style content material.
And one other fashionable one was Pizza Store Tycoon Boss Combat Replace! by TomJank, used TMNT templates, prefab, and units to create an genuine and interesting Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles expertise.
Lastly, Epic highlighted The Kraken: Bossfight by Gauntlet, a elegant role-playing recreation (RPG) that took the neighborhood by storm. With partaking quests, exploration, dungeons, and a complicated boss combat, it units a brand new commonplace for immersive gameplay.
Trying Forward
As Epic seems forward to 2025, it plans to unlock extra prospects for creators. Together with shifting Scene Graph into beta testing, introducing customized objects, and launching extra instruments to assist creators construct deeper, extra advanced video games with UEFN in new and fashionable genres.
The corporate acknowledged it has enhancements to make to UEFN and the creator expertise. It mentioned it’s is dedicated to growing stability, bettering interplay instances throughout growth, giving creators insights and instruments to maintain and develop a participant base after launch, and making Uncover the very best illustration of the big variety of video games obtainable for gamers.
Later this month, Epic will replace the general public Fortnite creator roadmap to let creators know what different options and updates they’ll anticipate all year long. The corporate will focus on the roadmap intimately, together with deeper conversations, at Unreal Fest in Orlando, occurring June 2 to June 5.
