Epic leans into creator tools

Epic Games has opened a new test tool in Fortnite that lets creators build non-player characters players can talk to by voice. (fortnite.com) The feature, called Conversations, arrived with Fortnite ecosystem update 40.20 on April 16, 2026, and Epic says it is now available in Unreal Editor for Fortnite as an Experimental release. (dev.epicgames.com) In plain terms, creators set a character’s personality with prompts, pick a voice, and let the character answer players in unscripted dialogue instead of following a fixed conversation tree. Epic says the system can also trigger in-game events and react to what has happened earlier in the same session. (fortnite.com) Under the hood, Epic says Google’s Gemini 3.1 Flash-Lite handles audio input and text responses, while ElevenLabs turns those responses into spoken voice. Epic also says it added safety layers to keep replies aligned with Fortnite’s developer rules. (fortnite.com) The tool is not live for the public yet. Epic’s documentation says projects that use Conversations cannot be published until the feature reaches Beta, and test projects show a watermark inside Unreal Editor for Fortnite. (fortnite.com) Epic is also drawing a privacy line around the feature. The company says Google Cloud processes the voice interactions, but Epic does not store player audio from those exchanges. (fortnite.com) The push comes weeks after Epic said it was laying off more than 1,000 employees on March 24, 2026, and blamed a downturn in Fortnite engagement that began in 2025. Chief executive Tim Sweeney said the company was “spending significantly more than we’re making” and paired the cuts with more than $500 million in cost savings. (epicgames.com) That context helps explain why creator tools now sit so close to the center of Fortnite’s strategy. Epic has spent the past two years pitching Fortnite as a platform for outside developers and brands, including a February 2024 Disney deal tied to a new universe connected to Fortnite and its creator base. (epicgames.com) Epic is also moving carefully after earlier AI experiments in Fortnite drew backlash. In May 2025, SAG-AFTRA filed an unfair labor practice charge over Fortnite’s AI Darth Vader voice, arguing the union should have been allowed to bargain over that kind of use. (hollywoodreporter.com) For now, Epic is asking creators to test, not ship. If the guardrails hold and the tool reaches Beta, Fortnite’s next big update may look less like a new mode from Epic and more like a new set of characters built by everyone else. (fortnite.com)