Epic Games is Releasing Its Cross-Platform Infrastructure For Free

Epic is leaning hard into its new storefront: as well it should. Despite everything, Steam still very much has the upper hand in this upcoming battle for the PC gaming marketplace, so Epic will need to leverage every advantage it has, including Fortnite’s expansive cross-platform infrastructure.

“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.”

This is not a small gift, as you can likely imagine, as more than anything else I believe the stability and speed of the Fortnite servers were a major reason they were able to match and surpass PUBG, which as I understand still struggles regularly with performance issues.

And this cross-platform stuff is comprehensive: while the initial release will be limited to core features, over the next few months developers will get access to cross-platform logins and profile information, PC/Mac Overlay API, Cross-Platform Voice Coms, Parties, Matchmaking, Data Storage, Achievements, and more.

And according to them, that’s all going to be the first steps, as soon they’ll also make other features, like user-created content support and anti-cheat software, available to the public as well.

Nothing about this is overtly stated to be about the Epic Store, of course, but it’s easy to make that connection. Epic is trying to project itself as a company that’s invested in the success of other developers (it says as much in the quoted paragraph), which should make it even more enticing for studios (especially small ones) to seek support on the Epic Store rather than the largely ambivalent Steam.

Epic beat PUBG in an impossible fight once, but now it’s gunning for an even bigger throne: Valve's.

And if it keeps this up, it just might succeed.