Something to look forward to: One of the biggest attractions of the Epic Games Store is the free games feature that sees different titles given away every week. The company has now revealed that it is bringing the program to its newly launched mobile games store later this year.
Speaking during a roundtable after a keynote speech at the Unreal Fest event in Seattle, Epic Games Store general manager Steve Allison revealed plans to expand the company's mobile game store with up to 50 third-party titles by the fourth quarter. One of those games will be Ark: Ultimate Mobile Edition, which was teased during the event. According to mobilegamer.biz, also on the way are cross-platform play and social features.
"In the holiday season, we'll open up with our first third-party applications," said Allison. "We probably expect somewhere between 10 and 50 of them to be ready, and the biggest thing is just going to be implementing a payment solution, so that may push some of these out into the subsequent months."
The biggest reveal was that the Epic Games Store's popular weekly free games program will be making its way to the mobile store. It will also launch sometime in Q4.
Allison teased some more "awesome stuff" coming to the store for both users and developers, which he says will help it scale up quickly. Devs will likely appreciate the arrival of self-publishing tools that the exec says will allow them to release games without any interactions with Epic, as is the case on PC. This is slated for release in the first half of 2025, possibly as early as January.
Epic's app store arrived on Android devices globally in August, allowing users to once again play the mobile version of Fortnite. But only those in the EU can install the Epic Store on iOS devices, thanks to the regulatory framework provided by the Digital Markets Act that is only enforceable in the European Union.
Epic says it has reached over 10 million installations of its mobile app store, indicating it's unlikely to reach its goal of 100 million installs by the end of the year. Epic CEO Tim Sweeney is blaming this on Auto Blocker and other similar mobile features that make sideloading apps more difficult. The situation has led to a lawsuit against Samsung and Google, which Epic claims are colluding to block Play Store alternatives.
Epic Games will extend free games program to mobile devices later this year
