Shipped: 2023
Contributors: Ben Woodhouse (Epic) Epic combined the XBOX Sustainability Toolkit with existing scalable features in Unreal Engine to introduce sizeable energy-efficiency improvements across Fortnite — without lowering visual fidelity or menu responsiveness. Because the improvements live in engine features many studios already use, other Unreal titles can apply the same techniques.
Estimated impact
- ~200 MWh per day in savings across the Fortnite player base.
- ~73 GWh per year — equivalent to 14 wind turbines running for a year (source: EPA equivalency calculator, 2023).
- Direct reduction in energy bills for players on XBOX and other platforms.
Epic’s key finding
It’s possible to make a significant difference to a game’s energy efficiency without a large development effort. Even small configuration changes can make a noticeable difference to overall power consumption, and significant savings are possible with careful tuning and logic.
Read the white paper
For the full technical breakdown — the Unreal Engine features used, the profiling approach, and the specific changes made — read Epic’s dedicated white paper:Reducing Fortnite's Power Consumption
Epic Games white paper covering the tools, methodology, and code-level changes behind Fortnite’s energy-efficiency work.
Takeaways for other studios
- Unreal Engine already ships scalable features for many of the Sustainability Toolkit techniques — you may already have what you need.
- Small config changes compound. Epic’s savings came from many careful tunings, not one big rewrite.
- Scale matters. A modest per-player win multiplied by Fortnite’s audience becomes tens of gigawatt-hours per year.