Epic Games – they of Fortnite, the Unreal engine and the lately launched Epic Games Store – have announced that they’ll be rolling out a suite of services and tools (as utilized in Fortnite) to assist studios bridge the hole between platforms. Epic lately made waves by getting Sony to reverse their policy on cross-platform play, and have since resumed uniting Fortnite gamers and accounts throughout all techniques. Epic say the providers shall be “free for all developers, and will be open to all engines, all platforms, and all stores”, which sounds brill, and will assist extra gamers get collectively throughout age-old boundaries, assuming builders select to make use of them.
Throughout 2019 (with most of it due within the third quarter), Epic’s instruments shall be made out there to builders, beginning with cross-platform login techniques, information storage and cloud-saves and increasing to incorporate voice comms all the opposite gubbins wanted to make PCs, consoles and even smartphones play good with one another. Anything that reduces the variety of accounts that should be juggled. Some issues are of apparent curiosity to gamers, particularly on consoles. Fortnite on the Switch doesn’t want to make use of Nintendo’s subscription on-line service, and its voice chat system is much simpler to make use of than Nintendo’s weird smartphone-based answer.
As for what Epic get out of this seeming act of benevolence is up for debate, however I really feel there’s some benefits for them right here. It will get builders away from different ecosystems for his or her voice comms, cloud saves and achievement monitoring – all of the stuff that main shops like Steam do, however in methods incompatible with Xbox or PlayStation. It additionally will get studios used to working with Epic’s instruments, and extra doubtless to take action in future. It additionally helps wedge open the hole created by Fortnite, making certain – by means of Epic’s rising clout – that platform holders don’t lock down cross-platform play sooner or later.
So, good for Epic, probably good for us, and hopefully good for builders eager to bypass the big headache of juggling a half-dozen platforms’ particular person on-line quirks. While the roadmap at the moment solely covers 2019, Epic additionally point out that they’re engaged on help for user-generated content material and anti-cheat techniques, amongst others. Level and mod sharing between techniques appears like a dang good factor for me – I keep in mind when Redlynx labored out a cross-platform system for Trials Fusion, and the PC went from a couple of thousand to a whole lot of hundreds of user-made ranges to select from nearly in a single day. Sharing is caring.
You can read Epic’s announcement and initial roadmap here.
