Epic Game released the first of these Fortnite year of the 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 almost tripled to 70,000, and they published more than 198,000 islands (games/experiences).

The islands also get traffic, as almost 60,000 islands are played per day on average. And 70+% of players play both creator-made and Epic-made games like Battle Royale.

The average number of players in games created by the creator increased every year in 2024, with daily active players of 15%; the total time played by 5%. And there is significant growth in non-combat game genres.

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The creator community continues to grow at a rapid 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 UEFN islands.

While engagement varies monthly due to seasonality, the average number of players engaging with creator islands on a daily, monthly, and yearly basis increased across the board this year, with an average daily players that increased by 15% by 2024.

Epic says it’s encouraging to see more creators succeeding in the Fortnite ecosystem. A total of $352 million was paid to creators in 2024, an increase of 11% when measuring the March-December time periods of 2023 to 2024.

By 2024, players will have spent 5.23 billion hours playing games created by creators — a figure that represents 36.5% of Fortnite’s total play time and continues to rise. This marks a 5% increase from 4.98 billion hours in 2023.

These numbers are fueled by significant growth in non-combat game genres, such as social roleplay, party games, deathruns, and horror. As of January 2025, this type of diverse content will make up more than 30% of the time spent on creator-created experiences, an increase of nearly 50% from the same time period last year.

New features and devices

In 2024, Epic is expanding the capabilities of what creators can do with UEFN with device launches of First Person Camera, new UI tools and HUD controls, Input Triggers, Proximity chat, Continuity, Custom NPC, and many other effects.

In the Creator Portal, Epic launched new ways to understand the creator’s audience, with improvements in analytics and metrics about your payouts, your player base and the introduction of island satisfaction data. Epic also launched Creator Profiles to help players find all relevant islands in one place, and Favorite a Creator to help you build an audience within Fortnite.

The beloved IPs arrived at UEFN and Fortnite Creative in 2024, allowing you to create new games and experiences with official The LEGO Group, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, and Fall Guys game properties and tools. . This initiative enables you to create truly commercial games using world class IP without losing contracts or negotiations, and can be done in one agreement.

This year, the highlighted Epic islands include the ARPG Fort Knight Legend by Love-is-Real, pushing the boundaries of Verse UI, Verse Persistence, and RPG elements to provide a great and exciting experience.

Another is Havoc Hotel 2 (Roguelike) by TeraCreators, which sets the standard for roguelike PVE in Fortnite, mixing Custom UI, RPG elements, and persistence mechanics to engage players beyond roleplay and tycoon genres.

There’s Lumberjack Heroes by ItsJacky, showcasing the power of UEFN with a custom UI and engaging gameloop. The depth of island gameplay has inspired other creators to push the limits of Tycoon-style content.

And another popular one is Pizza Shop Tycoon Boss Fight Update! by TomJank, used TMNT templates, prefabs, and devices to create an authentic and immersive Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles experience.

Finally, Epic is promoting The Kraken: Bossfight by Gauntlet, a polished role-playing game (RPG) that has taken the community by storm. With engaging quests, exploration, dungeons, and an advanced boss fight, it sets a new standard for immersive gaming.

Looking ahead

As Epic looks ahead to 2025, it plans to open up more possibilities for creators. Includes moving Scene Graph into beta testing, introducing custom objects, and launching additional tools to help creators build deeper, more complex games with UEFN’s new and popular genres.

The company acknowledged that it has improvements to make to UEFN and the creator experience. It says it is committed to increasing stability, improving interaction times during development, providing creators with insights and tools to maintain and grow the player base after launch, and making Discover the best representation of the various games available for 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, with more in-depth conversations, at Unreal Fest in Orlando, which will take place June 2 to June 5.