Epic Video games launched its first Fortnite ecosystem yr in assessment for 2024, and it has rather a lot 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 site 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 day by day energetic gamers up 15%; whole hours performed up 5%. And there was significant development in non-combat recreation genres.
Extra particulars
The creator group continues to develop at a terrific 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 attributable to seasonality, the typical variety of gamers partaking with creator islands on a day by day, month-to-month, and annual foundation has elevated throughout the board this yr, with common day by 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 intervals 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 whole 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, social gathering video games, deathruns, and horror. Thus far in January 2025, the sort of 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 yr.
New options and units
In 2024, Epic improved the capabilities of what creators can construct with UEFN with the launches of the First Individual Digital camera system, new UI instruments and HUD controls, Enter Triggers, Proximity chat, Persistence, Customized NPCs, and lots of extra impactful options.
Within the Creator Portal, Epic rolled out new methods to grasp a creator’s viewers, with enhancements to analytics and metrics about your payouts, your participant base and the introduction of island satisfaction knowledge. 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 modern video games and experiences with official The LEGO Group, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, and Fall Guys belongings and gameplay units. This initiative lets you develop genuine business video games utilizing world class IP with out getting misplaced in contracts or negotiations, and is enabled with a single settlement.
This yr, Epic’s highlighted islands included the ARPG Fort Knight Legend by Love-is-Actual, pushed the boundaries of Verse UI, Verse Persistence, and RPG parts to ship a big and thrilling expertise.
One other was Havoc Lodge 2 [Roguelike] by TeraCreators, which set the usual for roguelike PVE in Fortnite, mixing Customized UI, RPG parts, and retention mechanics to have interaction 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 in style 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 sophisticated role-playing recreation (RPG) that took the group by storm. With partaking quests, exploration, dungeons, and a sophisticated boss combat, it units a brand new commonplace for immersive gameplay.
Trying Forward
As Epic seems forward to 2025, it plans to unlock extra potentialities for creators. Together with transferring Scene Graph into beta testing, introducing customized objects, and launching further instruments to assist creators construct deeper, extra advanced video games with UEFN in new and in style 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 occasions throughout improvement, giving creators insights and instruments to maintain and develop a participant base after launch, and making Uncover the perfect illustration of the wide range 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 will anticipate all year long. The corporate will talk about the roadmap intimately, together with deeper conversations, at Unreal Fest in Orlando, taking place June 2 to June 5.
