The time has finally arrived! Today we sent out some invites for Fortnite’s Online Test 1. OT1 is the first phase of the Alpha process for Fortnite and will run from Dec. 2 to Dec. 19. We are very excited to get Fortnite into players’ hands for the first time.
During this phase of the Alpha we are testing to make sure all of the basic stuff, from the launcher to all the game systems, is working so we can start getting real feedback from real players to help us make the game better. The game is still rough around the edges but we think it can benefit from your input even at this early stage. Check out our FAQ for more information about OT1.
If you haven't recieved an invite yet, don't lose hope! There are more invites going out later this week and some of those invited have friend invites to share. If you haven’t registered for the Alpha yet, head HERE to sign up for the chance to get into a future phase of Fortnite testing. We’ll be adding more and more people over time and we don’t want you to miss out! If you want a taste of what’s in store, check out the video above.
Things have been quiet around here as we’ve been working hard on the next build of Fortnite, but that hasn’t stopped us taking a little time to show off our latest efforts with the game. A few weeks ago some of the folks in gaming media had a chance to play Fortnite and throughout the week you’ll be seeing their thoughts on the latest version of the game. Here is an awesome article Gamespot just released. In addition, we put together this video chock full of gameplay for everyone to enjoy!
If you haven’t heard, we also showed off the game at Apple’s World Wide Developer Conference today. Catch our team on stage showing off the game on Mac on this archived stream.
We’re so excited to have these opportunities to show off the game again and hope you like what you see as we get closer to our closed beta later this year!
Epic Games and People Can Fly today have announced the Warsaw-based team’s return to its original name, memorable logo and roots as an independent game studio.
Ownership of the company, which had been rebranded as Epic Games Poland in 2013, has returned to the local leadership to reflect the team’s desire to create their own games, a move Epic supports.
Studio director Sebastian Wojciechowski continues to lead People Can Fly. The studio is actively contributing to Unreal Engine 4 and Epic’s upcoming game, Fortnite, and is also using the engine for an entirely new unannounced game.
Epic Games Founder and CEO Tim Sweeney said, “We’ve been honored to work with this brilliant group of programmers, artists and designers throughout their history: first as a partner using the Unreal Engine, then as a studio within Epic, and now once again as an independent company.”
“We, as a People Can Fly team, are extremely excited about new possibilities ahead of us,” said Wojciechowski. “We’re going to work on a new game, while continuing to partner with Epic and use UE4. We’re grateful to Tim and the whole Epic team for our long and successful collaboration.”
People Can Fly made its mark on the game industry with the hit Painkiller series more than a decade ago. The team began working with Epic in the early Gears of War days, and went on to ship Bulletstorm and Gears of War: Judgment. People Can Fly has also contributed to Epic’s more recent games, including Infinity Blade III, Fortnite, Unreal Tournament and other unannounced projects.
Epic Games Unveils ProtoStar at Samsung Galaxy Unpacked
Epic Games has revealed ProtoStar (Playthrough), a real-time 3D experience built with Unreal Engine 4 technology at Mobile World Congress 2016. Demonstrated on the newly unveiled Samsung Galaxy S7, ProtoStar is the first application using Vulkan API to be shown at Samsung Galaxy Unpacked 2016.
“The new industry-standard Vulkan API brings key elements of high-end console graphics technology to mobile devices, and Samsung is leading the way with the amazing new Galaxy S7,” said Tim Sweeney, CEO of Epic Games. “As the first engine supporting Vulkan, Unreal Engine 4 provides a solid foundation for developers joining in the mobile graphics revolution.”
Unreal Engine 4’s implementation of Vulkan API enables developers to create visually stunning, cross-platform 3D content that supports more draw calls, and more dynamic objects onscreen, with faster performance than ever before.
ProtoStar introduces a slew of new Unreal Engine 4 rendering achievements on mobile, including:
• Dynamic planar reflections (high-quality reflections for dynamic objects)
• Full GPU particle support on mobile, including vector fields
• Temporal anti-aliasing (TAA)
• High-quality ASTC texture compression
• Full scene dynamic cascaded shadows
• Chromatic aberration
• Mobile dynamic light refraction
• Filmic tonemapping curve
• Improved mobile static reflections
• High-quality mobile depth of field
• Vulkan API support with thousands of dynamic objects onscreen
In addition, Vulkan in Unreal Engine 4 gives developers more control on mobile tile-based graphics processors, allowing for very thin and fast graphics drivers, with minimal overhead. Using Vulkan’s separate debug layer, developers can more thoroughly and easily inspect code and fix issues.