Epic Adds LEGO, Racing & Rock Band-Type Music Gaming to Fortnite, Also Expanding the Platform as an All-in-One Metaverse Experience

Along with helping promote user-made islands made in Fortnite, Epic just added a LEGO game expansion, Rocket Racing (from the creators of Rocket League), and Fortnite Festival, a Rockband-type multiplayer game mode from the creators of that franchise, to the core Fortnite experience. (Watch above.)

Longtime game industry reporter Stephen Totilo has the rundown on his Axios newsletter, where he also notes that Fortnite brought in 100 million active players last month. Stephen gave me a chance to explain how this fits into Epic's attempt to evolve Fortnite into the Metaverse:

"The goal is absolutely to organically have the best teams in the world in different genres develop games inside Fortnite," [Epic's head of Fortnite's ecosystem, Saxs] Persson said…

The introduction of new games as a creativity prompt for its players is key, Wagner James Au, author of "Making a Metaverse That Matters," tells Axios. "This should help nudge the user base beyond the core Battle Royale combat mode, and encourage their user community to build more diverse experiences through the platform's robust creation tools. In other words, evolve Fortnite into the full-fledged Metaverse that Tim Sweeney has dreamed about for decades."

My sense, talking with Fortnite community creators, is that the existing audience overwhelmingly expects Battle Royale-type games, which has locked them into creating islands that fit in that genre. With Epic expanding the core experience to include LEGO, racing, and multiplayer music, that should also encourage the community ecosystem to broaden out as well.

Subscribe to Axios Gaming to read the rest.