Epic is working towards normalizing Fortnite-style cross-platform multiplayer

While it’s not the only factor driving Fortnite’s worldwide success, the battle royale game’s cross-platform multiplayer is a big part of what keeps the hundreds of millions of players coming back for more. Whether you’re on desktop, mobile, or console, you can all get in on the same action and duke it out.

Epic Games, the developer behind the smash hit, has announced that it will be rolling out its multi-platform architecture in a free SDK (Software Developer Kit) over the course of 2019. This will mean that developers of other titles will be able to utilize the same technology to give their online games cross-platform support.

“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,” said the announcement. “These services will be free for all developers, and will be open to all engines, all platforms, and all stores.”

Roadmap

The announcement was made on the Unreal Engine site, the game engine that Fortnite is built on, and includes a roadmap of how each of the SDK’s features will slowly roll out over the course of the year.

Beginning with the core functionality landing some time in the second-to-third quarter of 2019, additional features such as cross-platform voice chat, matchmaking and cloud-saving will continue to be released throughout 2019.

Support for cross-platform multiplayer has been growing in the industry at large, with Sony finally budging on its steadfast position against it due to pressure from Epic Games and Bethesda.

The news comes a mere week after Epic Games announced its own digital games store to rival the likes of Steam, which plans to offer its users exclusive titles and free games each week.