Fortnite IMG

Epic Games has grown into a global video game powerhouse thanks to the Unreal Engine and internally developed video games such as the insanely popular free-to-play title Fortnite. Since the breakout success of the battle royale game, the American-based developer hasn't wasted any time expanding its empire.

In a recent news post over on the official website, it was revealed the company would be making a large set of cross-platform game services free to all developers in 2019. These services were originally built for Fortnite and have already been thoroughly tested by 200 million players across seven different platforms. Here's exactly what the company had to say:

Throughout 2019, we’ll be launching a large set of cross-platform game services originally built for Fortnite, and battle-tested with 200,000,000 players across 7 platforms. These services will be free for all developers, and will be open to all engines, all platforms, and all stores. As a developer, you’re free to choose mix-and-match solutions from Epic and others as you wish.

All services will be operated in a privacy-friendly, GDPR-compliant manner.

The service launch will begin with a C SDK encapsulating our online services, together with Unreal Engine and Unity integrations. We’ll start with a core set of features and expand over time.

These service features will cover Switch and include cross-platform logging, friends, presence, profile and entitlements (Q2-3 2019). There'll also be cross-platform voice communication (Q3 2019), parties and matchmaking, data storage and cloud-saving for all-platforms (Q3-4 2019).

Epic says these are just the first steps in helping develop the next-generation of socially-connected games.

What do you think about this? Are you a fan of cross-platform online services? Do you like the idea of more socially-connected gaming experiences? Tell us below.

[source unrealengine.com]