Fortnite - Image courtesy of Epic Games

Epic Online Services

Connect Your Community Across All Platforms

Epic Online Services enable you to launch, operate, and scale great games with the same services Epic uses for its own games, plus many additional services developed for the worldwide gaming community. Epic Online Services are available in a single SDK, for free.
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Any engine. Any store. Any platform.

Epic Online Services are designed to integrate with every major platform and account system. From player identity and friends, cross-play, and achievements, these services empower you to create the best experiences for players with complete freedom of engine, store, and platform integration choice.

Mix and match with other services

Epic Online Services are designed to be open and modular. The services are built to work with any store or platform, so your game doesn’t need to be on the Epic Games Store or use Epic Games accounts. Use your own identity provider via OpenID, or choose an out-of-the-box integration with Apple, Discord, Nintendo, PlayStation, Xbox, Steam, or Epic Games. All the services work independently of one another—use one service, use a few, or use them all. Epic has partnered directly with the major console platforms to provide a set of services that are ready to use with all supported platforms.

 

MechWarrior 5: Mercenaries - image courtesy of Piranha Games
Dauntless - image courtesy of Phoenix Labs

Connect your community across all platforms

Offer your players the power of cross-platform gameplay that unifies friends across all your game’s stores and platforms. The services can leverage your choice of account systems, including Epic Games accounts, which makes it easy for over 350 million players to join your game and connect with their 2.2 billion friend connections on over half a billion devices through leaderboards, matchmaking, and more.

Built by game developers, for game developers

At Epic, we’re game developers just like you. We’ve spent the past seven years building and battle-testing infrastructure to launch, operate, and scale great games. As with our other endeavors, Epic Online Services is a business in which we succeed when you succeed.

Alto's Odyssey - image courtesy of Snowman

Ready to get started?

Sign up at the Epic Games Developer Portal and download the SDK today.

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Game Services

Build, deploy, and scale your game’s backend with an essential suite of services for operating an online cross‑platform game.

Matchmaking

Build matchmaking into your game to let players or groups of players play together.

Lobbies

Give players the ability to join a session via invite or search, or create sessions of your own for players to join.

Peer-to-peer

Establish peer-to-peer network connectivity between multiple players regardless of firewalls or router setups.

Achievements

Motivate your players with badges, statuses, and achievements as they progress in your game.

Stats

Query player stats in real time and display achievements on leaderboards or within your own game construct.

Leaderboards

Show your players how they rank against their friends and everyone else, encouraging competitive and engaging gameplay.

Player Data Storage

Give your players the freedom to move between platforms by storing their game data into the cloud.

Game Analytics

Track gameplay, frequency, playerbase, time, and location KPIs to identify opportunities for improvement or expansion.

Player Ticketing

Connect directly with your players and personalize service through tickets tied to player profiles.

Title Storage

Store information about your title and share it with all your players across all platforms.

Player Sanctions

Catalog and track flexible restrictions on players, from competitive event suspensions to full account bans.

Player Reports

Collect and manage player behavior reports to identify infractions like cheating or abusive in-game communications.

Epic Account Services

Easily connect your players wherever they play with the largest cross-platform social graph.

Login

Enable players to sign in with any supported identity provider including Epic, PlayStation, Xbox, Nintendo, Facebook, and Google.

Friends

Show your players when their friends are online on any platform, and help them stay connected so they can easily party up and play.

We succeed when you succeed

Epic believes in an open, integrated gaming community. By offering our own online services to everyone, we aim to empower more developers to serve their own player communities.
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FAQs

  • Why is Epic Games providing online services?

    Building a great game is only half the battle. Successfully scaling your game requires numerous back-end services, together with the infrastructure required to manage them. To help you succeed, we are sharing our existing technology in this area, and continuing to further develop and extend it.

  • Epic Online Services are free, so what’s the catch?

    There is no catch. We built many of these services for Fortnite and are now operating at enormous economies of scale, and we also rely on these services for the Epic Games Store. Now, we are happy to offer these services to game developers for free with the goal of encouraging wider adoption of all of Epic’s offerings, and of making cross-play, cross-progression, and other open and interconnected, online features more accessible to everyone. Ultimately, when developers choose to use Epic Account Services, Epic and all participating partners benefit by growing a cross-platform account base and social graph available to all.

  • What does Epic do with data from my game?

    At Epic, we respect the confidentiality of your data and believe that your data is your own. We understand how important it is for you to control how data is collected, used, and stored for your games. Epic accesses your Game Services data solely for the purpose of improving or providing these services to you. We're committed to making Epic Online Services a powerful tool where you’re always in control of your data.

  • What does Epic do with Epic Games account data?

    For developers who choose to use Epic Account Services, these player accounts and friend relationships are available across games. This cross-game data includes basic information such as display name and friends, but does not include sensitive information such as purchase history. More details about shared player accounts and relationships can be found in the documentation.

     


     

  • How do I sign up for Epic Online Services?

    If you are interested in the available online services, visit the Developer Portal. You'll be prompted to create an Epic Games account or log in to your existing one. Once you have reviewed and agreed to the Epic Online Services Developer Agreement, you’re all set to start downloading the SDK and integrating it into your game.

  • Can I try out the services before committing to using them?

    Yes, of course! Epic Online Services are available to you for free at any time, so you can always implement a few and see how well they work for your team, and whether they help you achieve your goals for your game. You may choose to stop using any of the services at any time.

  • Can I use these services on PlayStation, Xbox, and Nintendo Switch?

    Yes. Epic Games has worked closely with many console platform providers to ensure these services are ready for developers who want to use Epic Online Services and the SDK.

  • If my game was developed with Unity, can I use Epic Online Services?

    Yes. You can integrate the SDK with a video game that uses any game engine, including Unity.

  • Which platforms does Epic Online Services support?

    Epic Online Services has built-in support for Windows, Mac, Linux, PlayStation, Xbox, Nintendo Switch, iOS, and Android.

  • Where do I get support for Epic Online Services?

    We offer help for Epic Online Services through our community support site.