Epic Video games launched its first Fortnite ecosystem yr in overview for 2024, and it has loads to rejoice.
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, and so they 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 each day lively 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 excellent 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 attributable to seasonality, the typical variety of gamers participating with creator islands on a each day, month-to-month, and annual foundation has elevated throughout the board this yr, with common each 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 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 whole Fortnite playtime and continues to rise. This marks a 5% enhance 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. To this point 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 gadgets
In 2024, Epic improved the capabilities of what creators can construct with UEFN with the launches of the First Particular person 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 grasp 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 will help 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 gadgets. 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 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 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 in style one was Pizza Store Tycoon Boss Battle Replace! by TomJank, used TMNT templates, prefab, and gadgets 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 neighborhood by storm. With participating quests, exploration, dungeons, and a sophisticated boss combat, it units a brand new commonplace for immersive gameplay.
Wanting Forward
As Epic appears to be like 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 stated it’s is dedicated to rising stability, enhancing interplay instances throughout improvement, giving creators insights and instruments to maintain and develop a participant base after launch, and making Uncover the most effective illustration of the wide range of video games accessible 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 focus on the roadmap intimately, together with deeper conversations, at Unreal Fest in Orlando, taking place June 2 to June 5.
