Epic is rolling out a program for developers that gives players a Fortnite cosmetic if they buy a game from the Epic Games Store.
Epic is rolling out a program for developers that gives players a Fortnite cosmetic if they buy a game from the Epic Games Store.
Fortnite is going to be getting a lot more crossovers featuring characters from video games. As part of the Epic Games Store’s year in review for 2025, Epic shared details about its official program for developers that will give people who purchase their game on the Epic Games Store a related cosmetic they can use within Fortnite.
Eventually, the goal is to scale the program to “over 100 partnerships per year,” Epic Games Store GM Steve Allison said on X last month. In an interview with The Verge, Allison says that there will be “about 40” this year and “60-plus” so far set for 2027. The program starts with Capcom’s Resident Evil Requiem, which launches on February 27th, and other publishers with crossovers in the works include miHoYo, Pearl Abyss, S-Game, MintRocket, and Kakao Games.
“It’ll help a bunch of our partners, and it’ll be cool for our players,” Allison says about the program. But it benefits Epic, too; players might be more willing to buy a game on the Epic Games Store instead of Steam because of a Fortnite tie-in, and more people making more purchases on the Epic Games Store might make the platform more appealing for developers and publishers in general.
In its year in review, Epic also highlighted how player spending in third-party PC games grew 57 percent year over year to an “all-time record” of $400 million. The platform saw an all-time record of 78 million monthly active users on PC, too. And users claimed 662 million titles through Epic’s free games program, which Allison says will continue through 2026. “It’s basically our marketing budget,” he says.
This year, Epic is planning to make some updates to the Epic Games Store launcher on PC, including rebuilding the underlying architecture as part of a string of improvements it plans to ship this summer. The launcher has been criticized for being slow, and the improvements should lead to faster load times and better stability, according to Epic. “We know the criticism,” Allison says. “We don’t disagree with it.” He says that Epic wants the app to feel “instant” and “snappy.”
Epic is also still invested in its efforts with its mobile stores. The mobile Epic Games Store has seen more than 50 million installs, Allison says, which is a far cry from the 100 million it was targeting by the end of 2024. “We expected more,” according to Allison, but the friction from scare screens is the “real deal.” (He’s said as much before.) Still, Epic is planning to launch the store in Japan in March and Brazil in June because of regulatory changes in those countries.
