Fortnite maker Epic Games has made some additions to its Online Services platform.

The firm has introduced a free voice chat – imaginatively named Voice – that developers can employ to have players across different platforms communicate.

"Voice enables developers to offer players one-on-one or group chat functionality across multiple platforms, during a match or in lobbies," Epic wrote. "Connections are established between authenticated users and relayed through the Epic Online Services back-end servers. Epic Online Services handles all the scaling, quality of service, maintenance, multi-region presence, and other machinery of the voice servers."

Meanwhile, Easy Anti-Cheat – which Epic bought back in 2018 – is also being offered out to developers using Unreal. The service is already in use on titles such as EA's Apex Legends.

"Easy Anti-Cheat is trusted to handle millions of users at peak times," the Fortnite maker said.

"Its long-standing, scalable systems continually evolve and enable all games to benefit from new cheat prevention and detection techniques as discovered for any of the served games.

"Easy Anti-Cheat enables developers to get direct control of anti-cheat enforcement in their game and maintain a fair playing field between PC and other platforms. The service seamlessly integrates with Epic Online Services’ Player sanctions and Player reports, and receives continuous updates as cheats evolve."