Epic Games boss Tim Sweeney said in a Gamespot interview that the Epic Games Store is coming to Android devices. The Fortnite Android launcher is now called the Epic Games App.
The CEO said the company plans to eventually add the Epic Games Store on iOS and wants to bring the same philosophy of developer freedom to mobile devices.
“We think it’s a good way to help the industry [move] forward and it’s another way where Epic as a game developer had built up this audience around Fortnite and learned how to operate a distribution platform on PC and Android,” Sweeney said.
Sweeney said the platform will follow the work of Unreal Engine and that the Epic Online services will be open to all developers. Epic wants to “provide a really interesting alternative to the ecosystem.”
The Fortnite launcher received an update in October 2019 for Android devices. Now, instead of just handling Fortnite updates, the launcher has become the official Epic Games App.
Android devices allow for third-party-operated stores to exist on the platform, so Amazon, Samsung, and many other companies have their own separate stores. The iOS system only allows its own mobile store, however.
This isn’t the first time Sweeney has talked about an EGS mobile service, though. In a December 2018 interview with Game Informer, Sweeney said the company was planning on extending the store to mobile in 2019.
The publisher recently made the matchmaking and account services that Fortnite uses free to Unreal Engine developers. With Fortnite being available for Android since August 2018, Epic definitely has a lot more experience in the mobile area.
