Earlier this year Fortnite became the first game to support crossplay between all major platforms, inclucing PC, Xbox One, PS4, and Nintendo Switch, and now Epic Games has announced they plan to further spread the crossplay love. Using what they’ve learned with Fortnite, Epic will be offering a new free service that will help other developers add crossplay to their games.
Here’s the rundown on Epic’s Online Services:
Related Fortnite: Dominating the World of Porn and Gaming
At Epic, our goal is to help game developers succeed. 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. These services will be free for all developers, and will be open to all engines, all platforms, and all stores. As a developer, you’re free to choose mix-and-match solutions from Epic and others as you wish.
Features include:
- Cross-Platform Login, Friends, Presence, Profile, and Entitlements (coming Q2-Q3 2019 to PC, other platforms throughout 2019): Provides the core functionality for persistently recognizing players across multiple sessions and devices; identifying friends; and managing free and paid item entitlements. This will support all 7 major platforms (PC, Mac, iOS, Android, PlayStation, Xbox, Switch) to the full extent each platform allows per-title.
- PC/Mac Overlay API (coming Q3 2019): Provides a user interface for login, friends, and other features in a game-agnostic, engine-agnostic way.
- Cross-Platform Voice Comms (coming Q3 2019 to all platforms): Epic is building a new in-game voice communications service supporting all platforms, all stores, and all engines, which will be available for free. (For developers needing an immediately-available voice solution, check out Discord, Vivox, TeamSpeak, Ventrilo, and Mumble.)
- Cross-Platform Parties and Matchmaking (coming Q3-4 2019 to all platforms)
- Cross-Platform Data Storage, Cloud-Saved Games (coming Q2 2019)
- Cross-Platform Achievements and Trophies (coming Q3 2019)
Kudos to Epic Games for climbing down off their towering mounds of Fortnite cash, and using some of it to make gaming better for developers and players. Between the new Epic Games Store, which gives more money back to publishers than Steam, and this new crossplay initiative, Epic is looking to shake up the industry in a big way in 2019.
So, with crossplay about to become an easier thing to do, what games would you like to see embrace it?
