The creators of Unity and Unreal Engine have become partners

Competing companies Unity and Epic Games have unexpectedly announced a partnership agreement. They have decided to make their platforms more open.

Details of the partnership are scarce for now: they promised to reveal more next year. However, some specifics are known.

In particular, the companies have announced that soon games created using the Unity engine will be publishable on Fortnite. Their creators will be able to participate in Epic Games’ payment program on equal footing with others.

Meanwhile, developers using Unreal Engine will gain access to Unity’s cross-platform marketplace.

“Just like the early days of the web, we believe that companies need to work together in order to build the open metaverse in a way that’s interoperable and fair. Working alongside Unity we’re helping developers build fun games, reach bigger audiences, and find success,” commented Epic Games CEO Tim Sweeney.

It is noteworthy that Epic Games has been actively experimenting with its engine recently. During a recent presentation at the Unreal Fest Japan conference, Sweeney mentioned that the next major version of Unreal Engine — Unreal Engine 6 — will incorporate “the best parts of the Unreal Engine 5 and Fortnite ecosystems.” However, he did not clarify what exactly this entails.