Epic Video games launched its first Fortnite ecosystem 12 months in evaluate for 2024, and it has quite a bit to have a good time.
Epic stated 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 printed greater than 198,000 islands (video games/experiences).
These islands are getting site visitors too, as practically 60,000 islands have 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 every day energetic gamers up 15%; whole hours performed up 5%. And there was significant development in non-combat recreation genres.
Extra particulars
The creator neighborhood continues to develop at an ideal tempo, with the variety of creators practically tripling from 24,000 in 2023 to 70,000 creators in 2024. The variety of islands printed additionally doubled to a complete of 198,000 in 2024, together with 137,000 islands created in UEFN.
Whereas engagement varies month-to-month on account of seasonality, the typical variety of gamers partaking with creator islands on a every day, month-to-month, and annual foundation has elevated throughout the board this 12 months, with common every day gamers up 15% in 2024.
Epic stated 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 enjoying 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, occasion video games, deathruns, and horror. Thus far in January 2025, this 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 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 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 know 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 Artistic 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 lets you 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 parts 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 parts, and retention mechanics to have interaction gamers past roleplay and tycoon genres.
There was Lumberjack Heroes by ItsJacky, showcased the facility of UEFN with its customized UI and fascinating gameloop. The island’s depth of play impressed different creators to push the bounds of Tycoon-style content material.
And one other common one was Pizza Store Tycoon Boss Combat Replace! by TomJank, used TMNT templates, prefab, and units to create an genuine and fascinating Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles expertise.
Lastly, Epic highlighted The Kraken: Bossfight by Gauntlet, a cultured role-playing recreation (RPG) that took the neighborhood by storm. With partaking quests, exploration, dungeons, and a sophisticated boss struggle, it units a brand new normal for immersive gameplay.
Wanting Forward
As Epic seems to be forward to 2025, it plans to unlock extra potentialities for creators. Together with shifting Scene Graph into beta testing, introducing customized gadgets, and launching further instruments to assist creators construct deeper, extra complicated video games with UEFN in new and common genres.
The corporate acknowledged it has enhancements to make to UEFN and the creator expertise. It stated it’s is dedicated to growing stability, enhancing interplay occasions throughout improvement, giving creators insights and instruments to maintain and develop a participant base after launch, and making Uncover one of the 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 count on all year long. The corporate will focus on the roadmap intimately, together with deeper conversations, at Unreal Fest in Orlando, taking place June 2 to June 5.
