The announcement took part at yesterday’s Summer Game Fest reveal of the Unreal Engine 5 demo built to showcase the PlayStation 5 gameplay. The developer makes clear that the upcoming version will not be a different game, but an optimized version in order “to take advantage of the new hardware and features on next-gen consoles.” The game will initially be supported on Unreal Engine 4 for next gen consoles, but in 2021 the game will switch to the new Unreal Engine 5.
Epic Games also confirmed that cross-progression will be supported across console generations, all accounts, progression and items will be carried to the PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X versions. Current gen Fortnite will continue to be supported. Tim Sweeney also announced the Epic Online Services are free for all developers, a free SDK is now available for five platforms.
Epic Online Services are designed to be open and modular. The services are built to work with any store or platform, so your game doesn’t need to be on the Epic Games Store or use Epic Games accounts. Developers who join Epic Online Service will be able to use their own identity provider via OpenID, or choose an out-of-the-box integration with Apple, Discord, Nintendo, PlayStation, Xbox, Steam, or Epic Games. Epic Games has partnered directly with the major console platforms to provide a set of services that are ready to use with all supported platforms.
Epic Games goal is “to build cross-platform social ecosystem together with all the other developers in the industry”… “we want them (players) to reach all their friends everywhere but also build up friends across multiple games and that’s the really interesting thing about Epic Account Services that we’re launching.” Said Tim Sweeney during the Unreal Engine 5 reveal at Summer Game Fest.
Source: Epic Games
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