Fortnite Ecosystem v26.20 Update

Sep 26, 2023

The Fortnite Team

The v26.20 update features the Photo Capture Mode for upcoming custom Lobby backgrounds, the Fang Spawner and Automated Turret devices, upgraded matchmaking, plus new tutorials and Verse snippets!

Bug fixes for Creative, UEFN, and Verse can be found in our documentation on the Epic Developer Community site.

Upgraded Devices Reminder

Starting in update v26.30, all islands made with Fortnite Creative will transition to upgraded devices automatically, and all new islands will use upgraded devices by default. To make sure your islands still work properly with upgraded devices, you can convert your islands now so you have time to test them.

Note: Before you manually convert your islands, we recommend you duplicate the island and perform the conversion on the duplicate first. Once you convert an island to upgraded devices, you cannot revert it.

To manually convert your islands to upgraded devices, go to the Tools tab of My Island and click the Upgrade Devices button. These devices are the ones used by UEFN, and provide improvements over the original devices. Improvements include:

• Direct numerical input
• Color pickers 
• Additional features for some devices

We'd love to hear about any concerns or issues you’ve had with upgraded devices. Our goal is to make the conversion as smooth as possible.

Coming Soon: Custom Lobby Backgrounds for Creator-Made Islands

Starting in the v26.30 update, new custom lobby backgrounds will show for each island in Fortnite. That’s right! You will soon be able to create your own lobby backgrounds for your islands! 

To prepare for the Custom Lobby Backgrounds feature, starting in this update you can use the new Photo Capture Mode to take photos of your island and use them for your custom lobby backgrounds. You can also use third-party tools to make your background image. Once you have your photo, simply upload it into the Creator Portal. 

If you upload a lobby background image before the v26.30 update, it will automatically be used when the custom lobby backgrounds feature goes live. To learn more about taking photos for your island, see Creating Custom Lobby Backgrounds. Additionally, make sure to check out the Lobby Background Image Guidelines so you know what to avoid when taking your photo.

Coming Soon: Unified Memory Calculation

Accompanying upgraded devices in the v26.30 update, your island will use a new memory calculation method that affects the memory cost of individual Prefabs and devices. This new method more accurately reflects the memory cost of the first placement and additional instances of devices, prefabs and props.

Your existing islands should remain within the memory budget after the update. Individual devices might have a higher or lower cost, depending on its resource requirements. For example, a Billboard might have a higher memory cost if it is using a high-resolution scale. Or you might notice a higher memory cost when you place the first instance of a device, but then a lower cost for additional instances of that device. Overall, you should see a decrease in most costs, particularly for Prefabs and Galleries.

Our goal is to provide accurate memory costs that account for ongoing improvements, fixes, and added features. To accomplish this, we might provide further updates to memory costs in order to maintain the overall health of the Fortnite Ecosystem.

Fortnite Ecosystem Matchmaking Update

Before now, when groups of friends queued together to play a Fortnite Creative or UEFN island, they were not guaranteed to be matchmade into the same team. With this update, islands that fulfill the following criteria will have an upgraded matchmaking experience:

• The island has been converted to use upgraded devices.
• The converted island has been republished.
• The island has a team size of 4 or less.

When the size of the party is equal to or less than the team size, the party is guaranteed to be assigned to the same team. When the size of the party is greater than the team size, such as 4 friends waiting to play a 3v3 game, the party will be split with as many party members placed on one team as possible.

For islands eligible for the matchmaking upgrade, creators will see a new setting in the Game tab of My Island, called Team Fill Option. In this setting, choosing Party Choice will give your players the option to fill their team the same way they do in Fortnite Battle Royale. This means parties can choose to play on a team by themselves. If you choose Must Fill, it means teams are chosen by the matchmaking system, a party's ability to choose whether to fill is disabled, and their teams will be filled with other players.

This is the first in a series of updates to improve matchmaking for creators' islands.

New Fang Spawner

You can use the new Fang Spawner device to add the powerful Fang vehicles from the Last Resort Season of Battle Royale. When you place a Fang Spawner, you can choose the Vehicle Type option to choose from three visual styles:

• Nitro Fang
• Pizza Pit Fang
• Thorne’s Fang

Additionally, if you select the Nitro Fang variant, you can choose to have the cars spawn with a random color, or you can select a specific color for all cars spawned.

New Automated Turret

You can now use the Automated Turrets found in Strongholds in Fortnite Battle Royale. Automatic Turrets can be customized in many ways, including determining which players are friendly or hostile. The turret can then automatically search for targets. The Automated Turret has full Verse support too!

New UEFN Viewport Option

In this update, we've added a Teleport to Here option to the Editor's viewport context menu. When connected to a session, you can teleport any player in that session to the location clicked in the viewport.

New Lava Cave Island Template 

Use the VFX - Lava Cave Template to learn how to make your levels more engaging! This island template demonstrates how to use high-quality lighting, post-processing, and VFX to make your islands look fantastic, which increases players' immersion and makes your islands more fun to play. 

Navigation Restructure for Creative Documentation 

We have updated the Fortnite Creative Documentation site for better organization and findability. Now you'll see:

• "Creator Operations" is now Publishing in Creator Portal. Plus, there is a more organized breakdown of how to use Creator Portal for managing your islands.
• "Getting Started with the User Interface" is now Understanding Island Settings. We also changed the titles for docs within this section to be more direct, so you can scan through the section faster and find what you need.
• The "Prefabs" and "Galleries" sections were combined under Using Prefabs and Galleries.
• The side navigation has been completely reorganized for a better flow from start to finish.

New Documentation: How to Design a Game 

Are you struggling to make your island fun and engaging? Are you new to making games? Check out our new How to Design a Game page that walks you through the basics of game design, and what to think about when designing your island experience. 

New Documentation: Thumbnail and Lobby Background Image Guidelines

Check out Thumbnail Image Guidelines for Discover and Lobby Background Image Guidelines for the definitive guides on what to do (and avoid doing!) when creating your thumbnail and Lobby background images so your island gets published as smoothly as possible.

Verse Code Snippets 

Check out these new code snippets!

• Generic Queue Implementation with both Array and List
• Functions to work with ridiculously large numbers

Even more are available in the Snippets Repository.

New Documentation: Linked Lists

Check out our new tutorial on linked lists! Linked lists are a common data structure in programming, where each element stores a reference to the next element in the list. For example, you can use a linked list to represent a music playlist or track the history of actions. Learn about what linked lists can do for you, and how to implement them yourself using Verse!