At Unity’s annual developer conference, Epic CEO Tim Sweeney surprised the audience by taking the stage to announce a landmark partnership between Unity and Epic, enabling Unity developers to publish games directly into Fortnite starting in 2026.
Why is this significant?
This partnership makes Fortnite the first major gaming platform to support external game engines, repositioning it from a closed platform to a truly open gaming ecosystem. Unity games will appear in Fortnite’s discovery system alongside content created on UEFN (Unreal Editor for Fortnite), maintaining total continuity without requiring players to install any additional software.
What does this mean?
Sweeney mentioned that 40% of all playtime on Fortnite is attributed to creator-made islands through Fortnite Creative, who are earning 100s of millions of dollars from this engagement. This lends itself to a huge opportunity for Unity developers who can now easily distribute their games on Fortnite, as well as maintaining the original cross-platform benefits of Unity on PC, mobile, and console. These developers can also earn revenue both from direct item sales (74% revenue share through 2026) and from Fortnite’s engagement payout pool, the same system that paid creators $350M+ in 2024.
With one of the largest game development communities, Unity brings a wealth of new content types and genres to Fortnite, from 2D games to complex simulations, potentially making Fortnite stickier than ever for players. It will be interesting to see how this affects the demographic makeup of Fortnite – will new and different content attract a whole new audience? Given Unity’s strength in mobile and indie games, Fortnite could capture more casual and experimental players beyond its core 18-34 demographic.
However, while this partnership validates Epic’s commitment to the creator economy, it also means significantly more competition for player attention and potentially a more diluted engagement payout pool. Fortnite developers who’ve built audiences will need to focus on retention and quality as the catalog expands dramatically.
For brands, this integration dramatically expands the inventory of partnership opportunities within Fortnite. Unity’s 5 million developer community means exponentially more experiences where brands can activate – from sponsoring indie developers to integrating campaigns into genres that don’t exist on Fortnite today.
Key takeaway for brands
For brands, this integration dramatically expands the inventory of partnership opportunities within Fortnite. Unity’s 5 million developer community means exponentially more experiences where brands can activate – from sponsoring indie developers to integrating campaigns into genres that don’t exist on Fortnite today.