Tim Sweeney Says Fortnite's Biggest Challenge Is Convincing People It's 'The Everything Game' and Not Just a Battle Royale

Epic Games brag Tim Sweeney has discussed the aboriginal of Fortnite, and the developer's continued tendency to turn the crippled from thing known chiefly arsenic a conflict royale into a level that offers experiences of galore antithetic genres.

Several years aft Fortnite's much-promoted Big Bang lawsuit that launched Lego Fortnite, Rock Band developer Harmonix's Festival and Rocket League shaper Psyonix's Rocket Racing, Sweeney told IGN astatine Unreal Fest 2025 that Epic Games' cardinal contented remained the information that radical inactive deliberation of Fortnite simply arsenic its starring conflict royale portion.

"That's our cardinal challenge, to person everybody admit that Fortnite is the everything crippled and you tin acquisition thing there," Sweeney said, "and that's going to instrumentality time. We're going to person to present connected a batch of different truly awesome genres."

Progress towards that extremity has, truthful far, been steady. Festival continues to pull large sanction euphony acts to header its seasons with caller subordinate skins and euphony drops. Lego Fortnite Odyssey, a endurance crafting experience, has a coagulated subordinate core. But Rocket Racing has mostly been retired, and newer shooter-centric modes specified arsenic Reload person recovered much success.

During its State of Unreal amusement this week, Epic Games noted that a third-party acquisition successful Fortnite had momentarily overtaken Epic's ain halfway modes for the archetypal time, thing that would person seemed intolerable conscionable a fewer years ago. But Epic Games' ain non-shooter modes presently amusement nary signs of replicating this success, with subordinate numbers good beneath that of the developer's main Battle Royale and Zero Build playlists, fto unsocial Reload oregon the game's Fortnite OG throwback offering.

When asked by IGN whether engagement for modes specified arsenic the philharmonic Fortnite Festival and assorted Lego Fortnite experiences were wherever Epic Games wanted them to be, Epic Games enforcement vice president Sax Persson replied: "I don't deliberation we're ever happy."

"I deliberation the shooter modes person done well," Sweeney added. "I deliberation we've not yet achieved the magic that we've been hoping to execute with the euphony gameplay. It's funny, we brought successful the Harmonix team, [they] joined Epic, built Rock Band and Guitar Hero successful the past, they're an awesome team, and they've been riffing connected approaches to that genre and Fortnite.

"They've besides been bringing successful each kinds of euphony items into Fortnite with Jam Tracks, which person not lone a song, but each the beats associated with them, and quality to play them connected your instruments."

Still, contempt Fortnite's hugely-popular philharmonic unrecorded events generating monolithic involvement and subordinate numbers successful the millions, Epic has not yet recovered a look that generates regular engagement of the aforesaid kind.

"Music has done extraordinarily good successful Fortnite, but ironically, not truthful overmuch successful euphony games," Sweeney noted, "more conscionable successful Battle Royale and elsewhere. Our adjacent measurement is to fig retired euphony astatine a ample scale.

"I deliberation arsenic Rock Band and Guitar Hero themselves achieved successful their day, which was a decennary oregon 2 decades ago, there's an accidental for a euphony crippled with tens of millions of monthly progressive users that radical conscionable perfectly emotion and travel to each evening oregon play for the coolest performance and competitory gameplay of each sorts."

How astir Lego, then, the marque that's possibly present the astir profoundly entrenched wrong the Fortnite ecosystem, and the offering that's astir fashionable of each Epic's non-shooter modes.

"I deliberation Lego is interesting, Persson said. "We are ace arrogant of [the] travel and it has a truly dedicated instrumentality base. But is it arsenic large arsenic we would privation it to be? No, we would emotion to person it bigger and fig retired a mode to get much Lego fans to spot that this exists."

Again, it sounds similar Epic is inactive facing the contented that Fortnite presently remains a marque associated with being a conflict royale much than thing else.

"What's our superior challenge? Our superior situation is Fortnite is Fortnite, and historically Fortnite was a shooter game," Persson continued. "It is not a shooter crippled anymore. It is the everything game, and we request to archer that communicative amended than what we've done."

One solution to this volition beryllium the forthcoming rollout of improved capabilities for third-party teams moving wrong Fortnite's Unreal Engine-powered editor, UEFN, Sweeney said. Epic presently has a amended toolset than different creators, but this volition alteration implicit clip — to the constituent that Epic's ain conflict royale seasons volition yet (now successful 2026) beryllium made with the aforesaid tools arsenic immoderate creator could person entree to.

"When we make our modes, we're moving with C++ and the full Unreal Engine, [while] creators moving with the toolset that we built, it's Verse and immoderate APIs," Sweeney noted.

"Our large task present is to get the 2 of those improvement frameworks to converge truthful that we, Epic, and creators are moving successful the nonstop aforesaid tools with the nonstop aforesaid capabilities and creators volition person mode much powerfulness astatine their disposal there, and that's been the happening that we've been moving truthful hard connected for the past 2 years."

But wherefore not conscionable settee with being a brilliantly palmy conflict royale? For Epic Games, the aboriginal of Fortnite arsenic a continued acquisition — and root of tremendous income for the institution — rests connected its continued improvement and ongoing taste relevance, amid the ever-changing scenery of fashionable video crippled tastes and genres.

"I would accidental we're lone palmy with Fortnite arsenic an ecosystem," Sweeney concluded. "If idiosyncratic other really beats america astatine our game, and builds thing that's bigger and cooler and amended than conflict royale... I deliberation there's a precocious probability of that happening.

"If you look astatine the shooter genre, it evolved with caller crippled types coming retired implicit clip based connected what was imaginable with the existent technology," helium added, noting the improvement of shooters from elemental games of Deathmatch to modes with larger subordinate counts and vehicles. "Battle Royale conscionable happens to beryllium the champion shooter genre yet invented — and acknowledgment to some the Japanese movie makers and [PUBG creator] Brendan Green for discovering the magic there. But it's decidedly not the last. There'll beryllium much and it'll get adjacent amended and caller technologies are going to marque things that are presently impossible, possible, and I deliberation that's going to unleash unexpected surprises and creativity."

It's been a engaged week for Epic Games, which has been talking astir the aboriginal of AI successful its Unreal Engine and successful Fortnite pursuing the caller merchandise of a precise chatty AI-powered Darth Vader. We've besides heard from Epic and The Witcher 4 developer CD Projekt Red connected that eye-catching Witcher 4 demo — and whether the last crippled volition really look thing similar it.

Tom Phillips is IGN's News Editor. You tin scope Tom astatine [email protected] oregon find him connected Bluesky @tomphillipseg.bsky.social