Epic announced in 2018 that the multiplayer system it developed for Fortnite would be made available to all developers for free, and today that work is complete. The full software development kit is now available, providing an "essential framework" for friend lists, matchmaking, lobbies, and other cross-platform multiplayer services for games made with any engine and distributed through any store.

Epic's offerings are divided into two parts: Game Services and Epic Account Services. Game Services includes matchmaking, lobbies, leaderboards, and status tracking systems. Epic Account Services is a service for developers that allows players to sign into games and find friends using their existing Epic accounts.

Why does Epic offer multiplayer technology? We built these services for 'Fortnite' and now operate at enormous economies of scale," Epic wrote in its FAQ.

There is, of course, a long-term strategy as well: to "promote the spread of all of Epic's offerings," but also to allow other developers to accept Epic account logins in-game, so that the company's launcher and store can attract new potential users or already account-holding users more conveniently. However, there is no requirement that developers must integrate with Epic Account Services in order to use other multiplayer features.

For more information on Epic's Online Services SDK, please click here. Epic also announced Unreal Engine 5 today and released a tech demo showing off impressive new rendering and lighting technology.