Epic Games has released the first year of its Fortnite ecosystem in review for 2024, and it has a lot to celebrate.
Epic said Fortnite UEFN (Unreal Editor for Fortnite) paid $324 million to creators in 2024. The number of creators in the ecosystem has nearly tripled to 70,000, publishing more than 198,000 islands (games/experiences).
These islands also get traffic, with nearly 60,000 islands being played daily on average. More than 70% of players play creator-made games and creator-made games like Battle Royale.
The average number of players in creator-created games rose annually across the board in 2024, with the number of daily active players up 15%; Total operating hours increased by 5%. There has been significant growth in non-fighting game genres.
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The creator community continues to grow at a significant pace, with the number of creators nearly tripling from 24,000 in 2023 to 70,000 creators in 2024. The number of islands published has also doubled to a total of 198,000 in 2024, including 137,000 islands created in UEFN.
Although engagement varies month-on-month due to seasonality, the average number of players interacting with Creator Islands on a daily, monthly, and yearly basis has increased across the board this year, with average daily players rising by 15% in 2024.
Epic said it’s inspiring to see more creators succeeding in the Fortnite ecosystem. A total of $352 million was paid to creators in 2024, an 11% increase when measuring the March-December time periods from 2023 to 2024.
In 2024, players spent 5.23 billion hours playing creator-made games, a number that represents 36.5% of all Fortnite play time and continues to rise. This represents a 5% increase from 4.98 billion hours in 2023.
These numbers support the significant growth in non-combat game genres, such as social role-playing, party games, death races, and horror. So far in January 2025, this type of diverse content has made up more than 30% of time spent on creator-made experiences, up nearly 50% from the same time period last year.
New features and devices
In 2024, Epic further enhances the possibilities of what creators can create with UEFN by launching a first-person camera rig, new UI tools, HUD controls, input triggers, proximity chat, persistence, custom NPCs, and many more impactful features.
In the Creator Portal, Epic has introduced new ways to understand your creator audience, with improvements to analytics and metrics around your payments, player base, and island satisfaction data entry. Epic has also launched Creator Profiles to help players find all relevant islands in one place, and Creator Favorites to help you build fans within Fortnite.
The beloved IPs are coming to UEFN and Fortnite Creative in 2024, letting you create innovative games and experiences using official gaming assets and hardware from The LEGO Group, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and Fall Guys. This initiative allows you to develop original commercial games using world-class intellectual property without getting lost in contracts or negotiations, and is enabled by a single agreement.
This year, Epic’s featured islands included Love-is-Real’s ARPG Fort Knight Legend, pushing the boundaries of Verse UI, Verse Persistence, and RPG elements to deliver a grand, exciting experience.
Another was Hotel Havoc 2 [Roguelike] By TeraCreators, who set the standard for roguelike PVE in Fortnite, blending custom UI with RPG elements and retention mechanics to engage players beyond role-playing and business mogul genres.
There was Lumberjack Heroes from itsJacky, which showcased the power of UEFN with its custom UI and engaging gameplay loop. The depth of island gameplay has inspired other content creators to push the boundaries of Tycoon-style content.
The last popular one was Pizza Shop Tycoon Boss Fight Update! By TomJank I used TMNT bricks, prefabs, and hardware to create an original and interesting Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles experience.
Finally, Epic highlighted The Kraken: Bossfight by Gauntlet, a polished role-playing game (RPG) that took the community by storm. With engaging quests, exploration, dungeons and advanced boss battles, it sets a new standard for immersive gameplay.
Looking forward
As Epic looks ahead to 2025, it plans to open up more possibilities for creators. Including moving Scene Graph into beta testing, introducing custom items, and launching additional tools to help creators create deeper, more complex games with UEFN in new and popular genres.
The company admitted that it has improvements to make to UEFN and the content creator experience. It said it is committed to increasing stability, improving interaction times during development, giving creators insights and tools to maintain and grow the player base post-launch, and making Discover the best representation of the wide range of games available to players.
Later this month, Epic will update the public Fortnite Creator Roadmap to let creators know what other features and updates they can expect throughout the year. The company will discuss the roadmap in detail, along with deeper conversations, at Unreal Fest in Orlando, which will take place from June 2-5.
