As you create your game or experience in UEFN, it's a good idea to routinely playtest your project in Fortnite Creative to make sure the props, materials, and devices behave exactly as you intended when you set them up in the editor.
This is also a necessary step before publishing your project.
Playtesting in Unreal Editor for Fortnite (UEFN) is comparable to the Unreal Engine Play In Editor function, but instead of opening in the editor, your level is uploaded to the content service and run in an instance of the Fortnite game client.
UEFN also provides a way for you to playtest Verse devices and test your project on console.
When you're ready to test, press the Launch Session button.
The icon will indicate that the level is uploading. Note that it may take several minutes for the level to load.
While Fortnite Creative is importing your level from UEFN, you will see a loading screen:
The loading screen displays artwork from the current Fortnite Battle Royale season. The loading screen you see will be different from the one pictured above.
When the server finishes loading the island, a character will spawn in your test level.
Playtest Verse Devices
When your code finishes compiling, the options Push Changes and Push Verse Changes appear in the UEFN toolbar.
Push Changes updates your client with all changes made in the editor, such as adding and removing props, modifying object properties, and any changes made to Verse code.
Push Verse Changes only updates your Verse code, and is faster than Push Changes. This is helpful in situations where you want to make small, incremental changes to your code without refreshing your session. Click Push Verse Changes to update your client.
After making changes to a Verse device in the level click Push Changes. This updates the device and makes any new changes playable. Clicking Push Verse Changes only picks up and pushes the .verse file changes.
Playtest on Console
Playtest your island on console to test your game mechanics and visual design on a different platform to ensure players have the game experience you envision.
Click the three dots next to Launch Session to open the Session Options dropdown menu.
Select Connect To Platform, the click Launch Session. This launches the Live Edit session on console instead of PC.
Performance Checklist
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Confirm that all your props are visible and are rendering correctly.
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Confirm that collision is behaving as expected.
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Confirm that props can be destroyed, and that they deliver the expected resource drop. Note that a prop without collision will not drop resources.
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Confirm that device properties in Creative appear as set in UEFN.
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Make sure your game runs as expected from start to finish.
Live Edit
Should you find something while playtesting that needs editing from the editor, click End Game in UEFN to stop the game in the client and return to editing mode.
During playtesting, there is a live connection between UEFN and the game client. Any changes you make in the editor viewport will immediately show in the client.
Left: UEFN window. Right: Fortnite game client window.
Press Alt + Tab to shift mouse control from the game client back to the editor.
Drag a new element into the scene from the Content Browser and it will immediately appear in-game.
Click the Push Changes button in the toolbar to re-upload your level to the content service.
Start Game
There are three ways to start a game in Fortnite Creative:
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Press Esc while in the client, and start the game from the Main Menu.
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Select My Island from the Main Menu, and start the game from here after having taken another look at your level’s settings.
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Press Start Game from UEFN.
In the My Island menu, double-check the Game, Settings and UI tabs to make sure the Island Settings you modified in the editor were accurately captured.