Hi Creators,
Thank you for taking the time to submit your questions for our first Q&A of 2023 via Discord! We enjoyed gathering your burning questions and giving insight into the future of UEFN and Creative. Take a look at this event’s answered questions below.
Q: Will we be able to share a private island code to a friend who can play or join our project without them being in a build team via the Creator Portal?
A: Unfortunately, this will not be an option. Due to the unmoderated nature of unpublished UEFN islands, collaborators will need to join teams via Creator Portal and verify their age and other information. This is to ensure a safe experience for our creators and players alike.
Q: Will there be a feature that you can permanently delete Published maps? Because there are 2019 maps that are broken with all the changes that happened in Creative. Most of our oldest, published maps are lost/deleted.
A: Yes. The “delete project” feature is in design. Stay tuned for future updates!
Q: Are there any plans to add Playtesters/View Only members for teams on Creator Portal? Currently, adding anyone on your team means they have edit control over all of your content and it’s required to invite them in order to test private codes.
A: Yes. The “playtesting” feature is in design. Stay tuned for future updates!
Q: When will creators under 18 be able to apply for the Island Creator Program?
A: We are actively working to extend publishing rights to creators under the age of 18 and will share more information as soon as we’re able. We are also working to expand eligibility for engagement payouts to creators under the age of 18, but this will likely be territory by territory and is more complex.
Q: Will new devices be coming to UEFN?
A: New devices will be coming, stay tuned.
Q: Are you still planning to add devices to Fortnite Creative?
A: Yes. We’ll continue to add new features that can be used in both Creative and UEFN. In Creative, those will be surfaced as devices.
Q: Chapter 4 terrain is not valid to be used in our projects, will we ever be able to use it? It’s amazing.
A: Yes! This is on track to be addressed in an upcoming update.
Q: Would you ever be willing to add storm customization like the tsunami storm from chapter 2 season 2?
A: Not in the near future. It was pretty bespoke and would require a lot of resources to get up and running in Fortnite Creative or UEFN.
Q: When will we see the Save Device and Accolade Device come to UEFN?
A: These are both top priority for us and we are working on them right now! Once we get them complete, we will roll them out!
Q: Will the prop mover ever get a zone option?
A: This is something we’re open to looking into, but aren’t currently working on.
Q: Any solutions in the works to try and prevent copy maps of 1v1, zone wars, and box fights?
A: This is a tricky area for any platform and we are looking into a number of different solutions to address copy maps.
Q: When will we get the search option in the Discover tab?
A: This is not easy to build, but it is a top priority feature for our discover team. Stay tuned for future updates.
Q: Aside from Creator Profiles, is Epic doing anything else to clean up the Discover page and make it easier to access and search for good maps?
A: Yes! We are constantly looking for ways to better serve content the community enjoys, and crack down on abuse from spammers and bad actors. We are far from finished here.
Q: Will we ever be able to create a fully custom and interactive HUD?
A: Absolutely! There are several initiatives in progress to enable creators to build more complex and interactive interfaces for their projects. We hope to see some of this work released throughout this year.
Q: Will the infinite creative session times get added back?
A: No, but we are exploring options to add behavior that will give players a similar feeling to playing sessions for greater than 4 hours.
Q: Is there an ETA for custom AI?
A: That’s definitely a feature set that we want to support in the future, however, it is not on the roadmap just yet.
Q: Will we be able to test the game locally? For example, instead of opening Fortnite, we can just playtest locally like UE5 without opening another program that eats our precious GPU?
A: There is an option in the Fortnite Game Client available when Editing called “Stop Rendering in Background”, which will prevent the Fortnite Game client from rendering while it is not the selected window. It should be located near the bottom of the settings menu.
Q: When do you think creators will have the ability to create custom NPCs / Creatures with gameplay features? (AI attacks, animations, etc)
A: This is actively being worked on! We don’t have a set date, but expect to release many of these capabilities throughout this year.
Q: Will we ever be able to make our own weapons for UEFN?
A: This is definitely something we want to support at some point in the future. Being able to create truly custom game experiences will require a way for developers to be able to make weapons and other items that suit their world perfectly and we want to make that a possibility.
Q: Will VR support ever come to UEFN?
A: This is not currently on the roadmap, but it’s something we’re open to supporting in the future!
Q: Will it be possible to change static mesh on a vehicle like before the update?
A: This is something that we are definitely considering, although it isn’t slated on the current roadmap.
Q: Will it be possible to have your game in German, for example, having the entire map be translated?
A: Unreal Editor for Fortnite will leverage the existing Unreal Engine localization pipelines for text and asset localization. Text localization will be handled via “Build → Export Localization” and will generate PO files to be translated via whatever method works best for you. Asset localization is handled via the L10N folder like in Unreal Engine, and allows for things like replacing poster textures with localized versions. See the “asset localization” section of this Developer page for more details, Localization In-Depth | Community tutorial.
Q: Will there ever be a hotfixes panel & system that applies hotfixes to the island when a new session starts? That way we don’t have to republish when we want to disable a feature.
A: We are currently outlining a set of features that would provide something similar to what this question is asking for. For now, we do not have a timeline set, but the goal is that some key settings will be able to be overridden / changed on a published map without needing to upload/validate/moderate the project again.
Q: Will memory limits be increased on maps in UEFN?
A: We are currently working on providing better tools to understand memory usage and looking at ways to increase what’s available.
Q: Will we ever have the ability to customize existing Fortnite items and weapons. (for example, change the fire rate or damage of a gun?) Is there an ETA for that or something similar?
A: Yes, but we can’t provide a date at this time.
Q: Are custom player character animations ever going to be a thing in the future?
A: Yes! Although we’re unable to provide a timeframe at the moment, this is something that we feel is essential to build games with unique player capabilities.
Q: Currently, UEFN experiences are limited to the default Fortnite moveset, which includes: running, jumping, sprinting, sliding, etc. This can be limiting for what we want to accomplish in UEFN. Are there any plans for allowing creators to implement their own custom controls and movement options beyond what is currently available to us?
A: Yes! We are currently exploring how best to expose the ability to customize controls, cameras, movement, and behaviors for the player character.
Q: Will UEFN come to the Nintendo Switch?
A: UEFN is a Windows PC Based editor. However you can use any console that supports Fortnite to develop and play your UEFN experience. This includes the Nintendo Switch. In the editor, click the 3 dots menu next to “Launch Session” in the toolbar. Click “Connect to Platform”. Then on your console, launch Fortnite and log in. Once you Launch the session, your UEFN session should launch on your console. You can then edit and play your UEFN project!
Q: Are there any plans to implement localization in UEFN? At least for certain known words like ‘Reset’, ‘Base’, ‘Enemy’, etc?
A: Unreal Editor for Fortnite will leverage the existing Unreal Engine localization pipelines for text and asset localization. Text localization will be handled via “Build → Export Localization” and will generate PO files to be translated via whatever method works best for you. Asset localization is handled via the L10N folder like in Unreal Engine, and allows for things like replacing poster textures with localized versions. See the “asset localization” section of this Developer page for more details, Localization In-Depth | Community tutorial.
Q: The verse roadmap has stated that custom weapons will be available this year along with abilities. Do you have a more specific timeframe for release? (mid 2023, late 2023, etc)
A: This is being discussed, but we have no additional details at this time.
Q: For Verse, is there any work being done to improve the animation controller? Right now there are severe glitches regardless of proper implementation / use.
A: Some fixes for the animation controller have already gone in, and we’re working on more! If you have any issues, make sure to report them using our Creator Bug Report Form here, Fortnite Creative.
Q: For Verse, are there any plans to allow Fortnite devices to be created purely through verse script instead of the current requirement for team to be pre-placed in the actual level? It would be great if its APIs were fully functional, without a connected prop version of it. This would save a lot of game memory.
A: This is something we are definitely interested in and it is on our todo list.
Q: For Verse, when can we expect to see more core language features being implemented? (e.g. parametric types with mutable variables, dynamic upcasting , local functions as well as closures, etc.) We either have to fight the compiler or rethink the implementation due to issues or unimplemented core language features.
A: We’re working on the new Verse virtual machine now, at which point, we will get some of these new features. More features will also roll out in 2024.