Epic and Unity team up to bring Unity games into Fortnite

Epic Games is expanding Fortnite beyond its own ecosystem, announcing a partnership with Unity Technologies that will allow Unity-built games to run inside Fortnite. 

The integration opens the door for thousands of developers to bring their existing titles into the platform, significantly widening the kind of experiences players will be able to access.

The deal reflects the company's push toward an "open metaverse", said Epic Games CEO Tim Sweeney. "Companies need to work together to build a metaverse that is interoperable and fair, working alongside Unity, we're helping developers build fun games, reach larger audiences and find success," Sweeney said.

The announcement came from the stage during Unity’s Unite conference, with the compayn sharing that Fortnite will eventually include support for “all Unity games."

The partnership will work by connecting third-party engines like Unity to Fortnite using a special protocol. Next year, Unity developers will have the ability to publish projects directly inside Fortnite and into its burgeoning economy.

Epic has increasingly leaned on creator content, and Sweeney said 40% of all Fortnite playtime now originates from third-party experiences. Fortnite crossed 100 million monthly active users during the last holiday season, but until today, outside developers were limited to Epic's own tools.

By late 2024, Fortnite creators had published nearly 200,000 "islands", while Unity's Editor had more than 1.3 million monthly active users. Even a fraction of Unity developers joining the ecosystem would rapidly expand Fortnite's library.

The partnership represents a new distribution channel for studios in a global gaming industry facing layoffs and budget pressures. Sweeney added that Fortnite could eventually work "more like a web browser", allowing users to move into fully external spaces without the involvement of Epic.

For the foreseeable future, all Fortnite experiences, regardless of whether they are built with Unity or Epic's tools, will be reviewed for ratings and functionality. Publishing full Unreal Engine games into Fortnite is expected to be supported in Unreal Engine 6.