In an interview, Epic Games CEO Tim Sweeney outlined his big plans for the rest of the decade and why Epic had to lay off 16% of its workforce last year to achieve those plans. The point is, Sweeney still sees the prospect of a "metaverse" made up of interoperable assets and markets between Fortnite and other Unreal Engine games/projects, like the Unreal "persistent universe" Disney plans to have.
"Last year, before Unreal Day, we were spending about $1 billion more per year than we were taking in," Sweeney said. Since then, spending has been only slightly higher than Epic's revenue. To put that in perspective, Forbes estimates the company's 2022 revenue at over $6 billion, while the Epic Games Store self-reported sales of $950 million in its 2023 review. Like Microsoft, Embracer Group and many other publishers, Epic spent big during the boom years of the pandemic and NFT craze, then had to tighten its belt amid the current industry contraction.
But big ambitions remain, with a focus on better connecting Unreal Engine itself with the more accessible Fortnite Unreal Editor, an evolution of Fortnite's creative tools that mapmakers have been using to great effect in a variety of custom modes and maps. "The real power will come when we bring those two worlds together, so that we combine the full power of a high-end game engine with the ease of use that we've integrated into the Fortnite Unreal Editor," Sweeney said. "That's going to take a few years. When that process is complete, that will be Unreal Engine 6."
Sweeney hopes that developers using Unreal Engine will be able to "build an app and then deploy it as a standalone game on any platform," and also be able to integrate their creations into Fortnite or any other Unreal game. One of Epic's initiatives along these lines is a "persistent universe" planned by Disney, but compatible with Fortnite: "We announced that we are working with Disney to build a Disney ecosystem that is their own, but that is fully interoperable with the Fortnite ecosystem."
"What we call Unreal Engine 6 is the technology foundation that will make all of this possible for everyone."
To be honest, after experiencing the Metaverse craze, Tim Sweeney's description is not very attractive, and many people may be more wary of it.