Epic Games releases free anti-cheat, voice chat services

San Francisco, June 23 : Fortnite developer Epic Games is launching free voice chat and anti-cheat services that developers can implement in their games.

The services will be offered as part of the studio's Epic Online Services suite, which is available to use with any game engine and supports Windows, Mac, Linux, PlayStation, Xbox, Nintendo Switch, iOS and Android.

The new voice chat service is cross platform and supports both one-on-one and party chat in lobbies and during in-game matches, The Verge reported on Tuesday.

When using the service, voice data is relayed through Epic's back-end servers, and the technology handles all scaling and quality of service features, the report said.

The company said the technology has already been "integrated and battle-tested in Fortnite", which provides some assurance that it can handle millions of players at once.

Alongside voice chat, Epic Online Services is also adding support for Easy Anti-Cheat, a service designed to root out and boot cheaters from online games.

Easy Anti-Cheat has previously been available for third-party developers to license for their games, but it's now free as part of Epic Online Services and should allow many more developers to make use of it.

Epic is including both services as part of its Epic Online Services suite, which isn't tied to its own game engine or storefront.