Discover update: Elevating quality and matching players to content they'll love

[playswithshapes (HaroldatEpic)]

Hello Fortnite developers,

At Unreal Fest Chicago, Jon Fox and I shared a deep dive on where Discover is headed and the changes we’ve made over the last few months. If you weren’t able to join us, the full session is available now on YouTube: https://youtu.be/mbZzMOQIXdU

Our goal remains the same: every time a player opens Discover, they should find something great to play. Discover’s job is to connect your games with the players who’ll love them, but a healthy ecosystem can’t depend on only manual curation. It needs to happen automatically with personalized curation.

I wanted to lay out some of the things that are landing in the next few days and coming weeks.

Eligibility filtering: elevating quality content, August 5

A common piece of feedback is that developers aren’t always clear when, or why, their islands aren’t reaching or staying in Discover.

Starting tomorrow, you’ll be notified in Creator Portal if your published island is not eligible for placement in Discover. You can also review our updated How Discover Works documentation, which outlines common reasons why an island may not be featured in Discover. How Discover Works in Fortnite | Fortnite Documentation | Epic Developer Community

Personalized ranking within rows: finding the right fit for every player

We recently introduced personalized row ordering to Discover, ranking genre rows based on each player’s play history and preferences.

In the next few days, we’re rolling out personalized ranking inside the genre rows themselves. Players will see content ranked to their own tastes and play history, even within a single genre. For example, one tycoon might be a great fit for one player and jump to the front of the row for them, while a different tycoon is the better fit for someone else and takes the lead in their version of the row. For more information, review our updated How Discover Works documentation. How Discover Works in Fortnite | Fortnite Documentation | Epic Developer Community

With each player’s Discover being personalized, we also want to give developers a way to check their island’s overall performance. Island rankings will be available through our API [ Swagger UI ] so you can check Fortnite.gg and FCHQ to see how often and where your islands appear across all of Discover.

Smarter tiles: better visibility for updated content

Coming in later Q3, islands with meaningful recent updates will get a highlight right on their tile, like an “Updated” badge and have the ability to show up in any Discover row. This will signal to players who’ve already jumped into your island, or who enjoy similar content, that there’s something new to check out. We will also be removing the dedicated Updated row now that updated islands can appear across Discover.

The key word is meaningful. This is about real updates—such as new themes, areas, modes and mechanics—that give players a reason to return. When we invest meaningfully in updates to our own games, players find a way to connect with them, and we want the same to pay off for you.

Looking ahead

There’s plenty still in the works, from richer social proof on tiles and a like-percentage alongside CCU, to a broader redesign that will put Discover upfront in the player experience. Find out more: https://youtu.be/mbZzMOQIXdU?si=EC8jMR5xWwzpxOXF&t=992

The best islands for a given player should be the ones that player sees. You build something great, keep it updated, and keep players engaged once they’re in. Discover connects it with the audience who’ll love it, giving it the exposure it deserves.

Thanks for continuing to build in Fortnite! I’ll be posting more updates to the EDC and on X (@HaroldatEpic). If you have feedback, would love to hear it so please drop a comment below!

[Lynxtop]

Hey, this is moreso a design request, but whenever this releases, would it be possible for us to get a PNG of the new badges on the thumbnail (the two bubbles at the bottom left, and the ‘updated’ on the top right) as something we can overlay on our thumbnails to preview if it blocks any details of the image? Or, maybe a preview feature during the publishing process similar to the lobby preview? Thanks!

[EXI5T_Chillz]

This is a fantastic change. Players will now have a much better chance of discovering new islands that may be even better than the ones they’ve been playing simply because those older islands had privileged placements in Discover.

[Falin_Dev (Falin)]

(post deleted by author)

[rip_fxvo]

Hey, can you please clarify a bit more about the removal of the updated tab.

Will meaningful updated give your map a boost in the rows then instead of the updated tab?

Thanks

[Marctrrt-95]

Hi, this is good news, since the “Updated” section was poorly implemented—it didn’t matter if you updated the map; it wouldn’t show up anywhere. I hope this improvement works better than the “Updated” section.

[AtAshTag]

@playswithshapes This is a great idea, I have to publish to check placement then re-publish if its out so this change like a preview in the publish section of cr or event the overlay would be awesome

[Senix]

Great work guys!

Benchmark for all stats next please

[playswithshapes (HaroldatEpic)]

Yes we want to make sure updated islands get more visibility in those rows.

[playswithshapes (HaroldatEpic)]

Yep, we’ve been thinking about this, I’ll circle back.

[playswithshapes (HaroldatEpic)]

We’ve heard this one loud and clear. The team is working on improving our analytics. The benchmarks have been a big hit.

[RMCFN]

@playswithshapes It’s great to see Discovery evolving and we hope that quality islands will get more reach. Many people are concerned about the testing window for new islands. It’s completely unclear how this works right now — new islands don’t receive a “new” category or any other category, so developers can’t get feedback on the quality of their island. How will this problem be addressed?

[AlexJam23]

Nice. Huge W

[Giddybrom]

I will not praise promises but today when i opened the for you tab it felt more personalised so thats a great direction, i do like the idea of the community events but it takes up an full page and seems to be getting abused, maybe turn of the option to extend the events so rotation will happen there to?

[Frostwing349]

I notice in the image example you shared of the the discover page, the top bar that had favorites, recently played, and by epic, as well as an easily accessible search bar have been removed and the search bar has once again been put in its own lobby tab like in chapter 4. if these changes are indeed happening at some point in the near future, they seem very weird. especially since it seems to be reverting to an old design choice that many people disliked about discover. many of the proposed changes like the removal of the updated row seem to be very positive but this one design choice feels like a step in the wrong direction

[SDFAN123]

Please add infinte scrolling to the right for genres

[Elextris]

Would personalization apply to the sponsored row as well?
And if not, will it happen any time soon?

[TheSandsquad]

Thats sad.. looks like even with 46 min average playtime we are out.. no chance and no future I guess

[w1rbs]

Is there really no appeal button in the new system? I’m sure that my map 8289-7246-0822 “Rich City,” which I intended as a roleplay and implemented many roleplay mechanics into, is definitely a roleplay, but I still get the message “Your island is no longer featured on Discover due to Genre Misclassification.”

[Kingzi_16]

I really like the idea behind the new Creator Portal feature that shows creators when an island is not eligible to be displayed on Discover and provides a reason for it.

This is definitely a step in the right direction because creators finally get at least some transparency instead of simply wondering why an island stopped appearing in Discover.

However, I think the feature currently has one major problem: the reasons are still far too broad to actually help creators improve their islands.

For example, being told that an island is considered “Duplicative Content” does not really explain what caused that classification. Is it the gameplay itself? The overall concept? Certain mechanics? The title or description? The thumbnail? The environment? The progression systems? Or a combination of several things?

Without more detailed information, creators are basically left guessing.

That becomes especially problematic when someone wants to significantly improve their island. A creator could spend weeks rebuilding gameplay systems, adding new mechanics and changing large parts of the experience, while the actual issue may have been something completely different.

The purpose of feedback like this should not only be to tell creators that there is a problem, but also give them enough information to understand what kind of problem they need to solve.

I am not saying Epic needs to reveal the entire Discover algorithm or provide extremely detailed internal information. Even a few additional categories would already make a huge difference. For example:

• Similar gameplay or core concept
• Similar level design or environment
• Similar progression or gameplay systems
• Similar title, description or metadata
• Similar promotional material or thumbnail
• Insufficient differentiation from existing islands

Something like this would give creators an actual direction to work with while still keeping the underlying Discover systems private.

Another important thing that should be clarified is what happens after creators make significant changes. If an island receives one of these warnings, can it become eligible for Discover again after a major update? Is eligibility automatically reevaluated after publishing an update, or is there another process creators need to go through?

Overall, I think the feature itself is a great addition and could become extremely useful. It just needs another layer of transparency. Right now it tells creators why they are not eligible in a very general sense, but not enough to understand what they should actually change.

Giving creators more actionable feedback would ultimately lead to better islands as well, which should benefit both creators and Discover.