Epic Games has announced that Fortnite will initially launch on the PS5 and Xbox Series X at launch with Unreal Engine 4. All progress and purchases from current-gen platforms will carry over, while cross-play support will be available across generations. For those still playing on current-gen platforms, don’t worry because the game will still be supported on current-gen platforms alongside next-gen consoles.

While we’re still a year out from games actually taking full advantage of Unreal Engine 5 (which was announced during the second live stream of Geoff Keighley’s Summer Game Fest 2020), Fortnite will likely be one of the first games to be powered by Unreal Engine 5. Epic Games have confirmed that the popular battle royale game will migrate to the new engine by mid-2021.

Speaking with The Verge, Epic Games clarified that the PS5 and Xbox Series X versions of Fortnite won’t just simply be ports, but specially optimized for the next-gen consoles. Even so, it still won’t be a completely new game in any way except “performance and visuals”.

“No, this is not a new version of Fortnite.

It’s Fortnite optimized to take advantage of the new hardware and features on next-gen consoles.

How will Fortnite take advantage of next-gen console hardware?

While we can’t share specifics at the moment, more powerful hardware will allow us to improve performance and visuals.”