Fortnite launched its Unreal Editor For Fortnite (UEFN) this week (dubbed Creative 2.0 by many) giving everyone access to a creative suite that lets them piece together their own projects and games. As you can imagine, many of the first ideas that sprung to mind for creators was to reimagine backdrops from other games in Fortnite. However, Epic Games has now confirmed via its updated UEFN terms that using other IPs is not allowed.
“Using anyone’s intellectual property without their permission is a violation of Epic’s rules,” the updated terms read. “Those rules make it clear that you are not permitted to create, publish, or monetize content based on others’ copyrighted IP.” That presumably means a lot of the islands and creations that have been made within the first few days of UEFN's launch will swiftly be removed if they haven't been taken down already.
Among the Creative 2.0 creations that were made within hours, let alone days, of the new tools going live was Grove Street. For those unfamiliar with the famous video game location, it was where CJ and various other characters lived in GTA San Andreas. If you missed out on the remarkable Fortnite clone of the iconic street, you may well have missed out on it entirely now Epic has put its foot down on recreating IP owned by other studios.
Epic even appears to be including its own IP under these new rules which may get confusing fast. It seems to have made an exception for the recreation of Fortnite's original island, though, as one of the first fanmade creations was a remake of the very first map. A fascinating place to visit as it shows just how much the game has changed in six years. There's certainly nowhere like Mega City on that map, although you might argue the chance to revisit Tilted Towers is even better.
Epic's showcase of what's possible in UEFN is pretty incredible. Even more incredible when you consider it was rolled out during the same week the game's trees were inexplicably disappearing on PS5, and shortly after players were left very underwhelmed by the game's take on Resident Evil's Leon and Claire.