Unity and Epic Games Join Forces to Integrate Engines

Epic Games and Unity have announced a surprise partnership. As part of the deal, developers using the Unity engine will be able to publish their projects inside the Fortnite ecosystem, granting them access to the shooter's audience of millions.

The initiative was unveiled at the Unite 2025 conference. The head of Epic Games, Tim Sweeney, noted that Fortnite has long outgrown the battle royale genre, transforming into a massive platform. Now its capabilities will become available to a significant portion of indie developers and major studios accustomed to working with Unity. On the technical side, integrating two different game engines—Unreal Engine 5 and Unity—was made possible by a special technology from Unity that allows connecting products on different engines via a network protocol, which had previously been a major obstacle.

This partnership is not limited to game publishing. The Unity commercial platform will also receive support from Unreal Engine, giving UE developers more freedom in managing digital catalogs, payment systems, and online stores.

Unity's President and CEO, Matt Bromberg, called choice and open systems key factors for the growth of the entire gaming industry. The companies have promised to share details on how exactly the new ecosystem will work and when the first projects will appear within the next year. This rapprochement between the two tech giants could change the balance of power in the game engine market and create new trends in the development of gaming platforms.

This partnership is another step in Unity's strategy to win back developers' trust. Recall that in October 2024, the company introduced Unity 6, betting on technical innovation and stability after scrapping the unpopular runtime fee. Close integration with the Epic Games ecosystem, alongside the engine's new capabilities, could serve as an additional argument for studios to choose Unity.