FORTNITE CREATIVE
Epic vision
What does Fortnite Creative 2.0 mean for Epic’s plans of a metaversal future?
Escape-room sequence The Space Inside is a sample provided by Epic to show the sort of results that can be achieved using Unreal Editor For Fortnite
Epic Games arrived at the 2023 Game Developers Conference with a clear goal, using its keynote presentation to lift the lid on some of the company’s biggest projects, with an ambitious overhaul to Fortnite’s Creative mode front and centre. Creative 2.0 places the unrestrained power of Unreal Engine in anyone’s hands, Epic CEO Tim Sweeney says, and puts the metaverse in reach for Fortnite and the broader videogame industry.
After spending some time with Unreal Editor For Fortnite, at least part of that claim feels true. The PC-based software is an expansive tool, with potential that’s unlikely to be fully realised for months or even years to come – though that’s thanks in part to a limited set of launch tutorials that narrows its target audience. The second claim is more complex and, ironically, seems to point to a future without Fortnite at its centre, and a metaverse with Epic-branded walls surrounding it.
Users with no coding background should not ignore the editor’s ‘your first hour’ tutorial when getting started. It’s hardly exhaustive, but it does cover the basics of how it works and what you should do to achieve at least a semifunctioning result. Right now, some of the more complicated, yet still essential, factors – such as the intricacies of meshes and how to use Epic’s programming language, Verse – are in need of their own tutorials presented in a similarly easy-to-digest manner. Epic offers some resources on its product page, but the editor’s most promising features are currently directed more towards professional developers, or at least those with a reasonably firm grounding in programming.