Unity and Epic Games have buried the hatchet to bring Unity games into Fortnite.
Unity CEO Matt Bromberg welcomed Epic Games boss and Unreal Engine progenitor Tim Sweeney onto the stage at Unite 2025 to confirm the two longstanding rivals have partnered to give Unity developers the ability to push their titles into the Fortnite ecosystem.
The battle royale shooter turned would-be metaverse has become a colossal platform with over 500 million registered accounts worldwide. Epic is currently attempting to carry that momentum forward by turning Fortnite into a haven for UGC creators.
Starting next year, Unity developers will be able to ride that wave and participate in the Fortnite Creator Economy, with Sweeney noting that 40 percent of playtime on Fortnite is currently spent in third-party experiences built by independent developers.
Sweeney said it’s imperative that companies like Unity and Epic work together to build an “open metaverse” that’s interoperable and fair. “Working alongside Unity we’re helping developers build fun games, reach bigger audiences, and find success,” he added.
Elaborating on how the partnership will impact developers, Sweeney said both companies hope to address challenges related to the fragmentation of tools and publishing pathways.
To get the ball rolling, he confirmed Unity will bring its in-app purchase SDK to all Unreal Engine developers. “This means Unreal Engine devs, like Unity developers, will be able to choose Unity’s in-app purchase APIs to handle cross-platform purchases, entitlements, pricing logic, and everything else,” he continued during the keynote.
“This is really valuable now. Mobile platforms are finally opening up to competing stores and payment methods […] and we’re grateful to Unity for supporting it.”
As for Fortnite, Sweeney said he hopes to turn the wildly popular title into an “open metaverse economy that supports all users and all engines.”
Discussing the strategic implications of the partnership, Omdia principal analyst Liam Deane suggested the move is a “strong signal that neither [company] is now prioritizing their game engine as a standalone product.”
“Each is now treating its game engine as a trojan horse for a bigger project: for Unity, its advertising and monetization business; for Epic, growing its UGC (sorry, “metaverse”) ecosystem—in Fortnite and elsewhere,” he added. “Crucially, these ventures are very different and not in competition with each other. To a large extent, therefore, Unity and Epic simply no longer see each other as competitors.”
He also indicated developers should view the partnership with a degree of trepidation.
“This announcement is being sold as a step forward for openness and interoperability, which sounds like a win for developers. In reality though, developers have benefitted hugely from the intense competition between Unity and Unreal Engine,” continued Deane. “With that competition easing, the risk is that developers will find both companies more interested in pursuing grander ambitions than just offering the best game engine.”
Game Developer and Omdia are sibling companies under Informa.