Fortnite maker Epic Games is coming to Detroit. Not to shift development of the wildly popular online game from Epic's headquarters in Cary, N.C., to the Motor City, but to better serve its growing number of automotive clients using Unreal Engine.

Unreal Engine is an end-to-end game design toolset capable of rendering photorealistic imagery on the fly. Ford used an Unreal-powered VR experience as part of the 2020 Explorer's debut at the 2019 North American International Auto Show, while 1,000 Audi dealerships around the world have interactive Unreal-based car configurators accurate down to the last lug nut.

For Ford, VR is the best way for consumers to experience a prototype vehicle without them sitting in a prototype vehicle. The 2020 Explorer debut at NAIAS this year used an array of cameras to monitor the Explorer and sync visuals to changes in elevation and position as the SUV drove around a track. After six months of planning for the original demo in Detroit, it took six weeks for the automaker's creative agency, Imagination, to translate that to an experience that would work within smaller confines of the New York International Auto Show at Javits Center in Manhattan.

"We're looking for the most cost efficient way to achieve our objectives," said Garett Carr, global auto show and events manager at Ford. "And if Unreal is the most efficient way to communicate what we're trying to communicate, that's what we'll use."

Epic's enterprise focus didn't truly take hold until after Fortnite began breaking records in 2017. The privately held company started in 1990, and has matured alongside the video game industry, driving visual fidelity forward with each iteration of Unreal. Despite those successes, Epic's in an unfamiliar position: proving its value to industrial customers who don't see Unreal Engine's potential beyond making toys. It also has competition from another game design tool that's being adapted to industry, the Unity Engine from San Francisco-based Unity Technologies. Epic sees a Detroit location as a competitive advantage, and expects its presence in the region will help win new clients.