Epic wants to let you bring your Fortnite skins to other games
Epic wants to let you bring your Fortnite skins to other games
Epic 希望让你能把《堡垒之夜》皮肤带到其他游戏中
Epic Games has been touting the potential of an interoperable metaverse for years, though that vision hasn’t yet become a reality. But with Unreal Engine 6, the next major version of its game development engine, Epic plans to take a big step toward that theoretical future: it will let developers make games that can use a player’s Fortnite skins and will let developers build skins of their own that work with Fortnite.
多年来，Epic Games 一直在宣传互操作性元宇宙的潜力，尽管这一愿景尚未成为现实。但随着其游戏开发引擎的下一个重大版本——虚幻引擎 6（Unreal Engine 6）的推出，Epic 计划向这一理论上的未来迈出重要一步：它将允许开发者制作能够使用玩家《堡垒之夜》（Fortnite）皮肤的游戏，并允许开发者构建能在《堡垒之夜》中使用的自有皮肤。
“We’re tackling this problem first because we want to prove things out with a system that’s complex enough to be a meaningful existence proof of the idea, and one that inherently comes with a ton of player value by respecting their purchases across an interconnected ecosystem of games,” Marcus Wassmer, Epic’s EVP of development, says in a blog post tied to Epic’s State of Unreal keynote.
“我们首先解决这个问题，是因为我们想通过一个足够复杂的系统来验证这一想法，使其成为该理念有意义的实证。同时，通过在互联的游戏生态系统中尊重玩家的购买行为，这本身就能带来巨大的玩家价值，”Epic 开发执行副总裁 Marcus Wassmer 在配合 Epic“虚幻状态”（State of Unreal）主题演讲发布的博客文章中说道。
Should this system work and get broadly adopted by developers, it could actually be pretty cool. I have spent more money on Fortnite skins than I care to admit, and I imagine it would be fun to romp around in games that aren’t Fortnite with outfits like John Wick or my favorite Stormtrooper Samurai.
如果这个系统能够奏效并被开发者广泛采用，那确实会非常酷。我在《堡垒之夜》皮肤上花的钱多到我都不好意思承认，我想如果能穿着“约翰·威克”（John Wick）或我最喜欢的“冲锋队武士”（Stormtrooper Samurai）这类服装，在《堡垒之夜》以外的游戏里四处游玩，那一定会很有趣。
But for that to actually happen, developers will have to do the work to implement support for the systems in their games, which isn’t a guarantee. They’ll likely need some kind of incentives to make the effort with it instead of just opening a door that feeds back into Epic’s Fortnite ecosystem. And with Epic targeting an early access release for Unreal Engine 6 for the end of 2027 — and the full release coming “12-18 months later” — it will be a while before all the tools are in place for interested developers to even begin implementing ways to allow Fortnite skins in their games.
但要实现这一点，开发者必须投入工作在他们的游戏中实现对这些系统的支持，而这并不能保证。他们可能需要某种激励措施才会愿意为此付出努力，而不是仅仅打开一扇回流到 Epic《堡垒之夜》生态系统的大门。由于 Epic 计划在 2027 年底发布虚幻引擎 6 的抢先体验版，而正式版将在“12 到 18 个月后”推出，感兴趣的开发者还需要等待一段时间，才能获得所有工具并开始着手实现允许《堡垒之夜》皮肤进入其游戏的方案。
This is also all being announced as Fortnite is facing some challenges, with Epic laying off more than 1,000 workers in March due to a dropoff in Fortnite engagement. Fortnite is still popular — it has 75 million monthly active users, Epic’s Hannah Lowry said on stage. But it’s not as big as it once was, and Epic is trying to turn things around with more gaming crossovers and a planned shift to show the Roblox-like “Discover” screen featuring different experiences when you boot up Fortnite instead of dropping you into the lobby. And Epic’s planned “persistent universe” it’s building with Disney still hasn’t come to fruition after being announced more than two years ago.
与此同时，这些消息是在《堡垒之夜》面临挑战的背景下宣布的。由于《堡垒之夜》参与度下降，Epic 在 3 月份裁减了 1,000 多名员工。Epic 的 Hannah Lowry 在台上表示，《堡垒之夜》依然很受欢迎，拥有 7500 万月活跃用户。但它已不如往昔辉煌，Epic 正试图通过更多的游戏联动来扭转局面，并计划进行调整：当你启动《堡垒之夜》时，不再直接进入大厅，而是展示类似 Roblox 的“发现”（Discover）屏幕，呈现不同的游戏体验。此外，Epic 与迪士尼合作构建的“持久宇宙”计划在宣布两年多后，仍未实现。
Epic is also getting pushback against its approach to generative AI. This week, it detailed how it uses generative AI to assist with making art for Fortnite, and as part of the State of Unreal news, Epic said that it would add an experimental MCP plugin to Unreal Engine to let developers connect LLMs to their projects to help with generating assets and other parts of development. On stage, Epic announced a planned Fortnite crossover featuring the indie hit Vampire Survivors, but Poncle, the developer of the game, said that because of “today’s news about gen AI usage by Epic to create all sort [sic] of game assets, including Fortnite characters,” it would be “reviewing” the collaboration.
Epic 在生成式 AI 的应用上也遭到了抵制。本周，Epic 详细介绍了如何利用生成式 AI 辅助《堡垒之夜》的美术创作。作为“虚幻状态”新闻的一部分，Epic 表示将在虚幻引擎中添加一个实验性的 MCP 插件，让开发者能够将大语言模型（LLM）连接到他们的项目中，以辅助生成资产及其他开发工作。在演讲台上，Epic 宣布了《堡垒之夜》与独立游戏热门作《吸血鬼幸存者》（Vampire Survivors）的联动计划，但该游戏的开发商 Poncle 表示，由于“今天关于 Epic 使用生成式 AI 创建各种游戏资产（包括《堡垒之夜》角色）的新闻”，他们将“重新评估”此次合作。