Game-Changing: Epic Games Unveils Revolutionary Crossplay Implementation Strategy

Highlights

Epic Games is expanding its crossplay tools to support major consoles, allowing developers to easily implement cross-platform play in their games.

The purpose of these tools is to enhance connectivity among players and incorporate cross-platform features into games, making it easier to incorporate crossplay multiplayer functions.

The increased crossplay capability enables more players to join multiplayer games with their friends regardless of the platform, benefiting both the gaming community and Epic Games as a company.

Epic Games revealed on Wednesday its plans to expand the capabilities of its crossplay tools, enabling game developers to effortlessly incorporate cross-platform play into their games. These tools are an integral part of Epic Games' free software development kit, Epic Online Services.

The introduction of these tools is in line with Epic Games' unwavering support for crossplay, as demonstrated by the enormous success of Fortnite, a multiplayer game that allows players from different platforms to play together. Traditionally, developers face the challenge of adapting their games to various platforms and digital marketplaces, preventing players using different platforms or purchasing from different PC stores from joining each other's games. With the implementation of Epic's new tools, developers can effortlessly connect a greater number of players and seamlessly integrate cross-platform functionalities into their games. The company initially announced these crossplay tools in 2022, which were initially limited to PC and facilitated connectivity between the Epic Games Store and Steam. The new features included an overlay, consolidating friends from both Steam and Epic Games Store into a unified list, and enabling game invitations across the two PC stores.

Epic Games has now expanded its tools to include support for PlayStation, Xbox, and Nintendo Switch. In a recent blog post, the company announced that the Epic Online Services overlay will be consistent across PC and console platforms. This allows players to easily connect with all their friends in one place, create a new Epic Games account linked to their native platform account, and send and receive game invites. Additionally, players can now enjoy cross-platform play. These crossplay game services are compatible with any game engine and any store or platform. This overlay will significantly simplify the process of implementing crossplay multiplayer functions into games, enabling friends with different consoles or from different PC stores to play together. With over 750 million Epic Games accounts and hundreds of games utilizing Epic Online Services, a vast number of players will soon be able to experience crossplay capabilities. Crossplay is just one of the many tools provided by Epic Online Services, offering game developers a streamlined development process through a single back-end service provider.

This update is bound to generate excitement. With expanded crossplay, more players will have the opportunity to connect and join multiplayer games with their friends, regardless of the platform they use. This will enhance connectivity within the larger gaming community. Additionally, Epic Games stands to gain multiple advantages from this new feature. It is highly probable that game developers will be prompted to utilize Epic's other services, including the widely-used creation tool, Unreal Engine 5. Moreover, gamers may be more inclined to make purchases from Epic's PC store by using their existing Epic Games account.