Epic and Google have signed a special deal for a new class of ‘metaverse’ apps

Epic Games and Google are burying the hatchet, but documents released today reveal they’re not just aligning with how Google is making things happen for app stores. The two companies also agreed to terms regarding a new class of applications they call “metaverse browsers,” according to a strongly worded section of a revised binding term sheet.

While the term “metaverse” has largely fallen out of favor — Mark Zuckerberg, for example, is now much more interested in AI — Epic CEO Tim Sweeney has been talking for years about the metaverse and how it might work in the future. (Depending on how you define the concept, Epic Fortnite is already arguably one of the biggest releases of a metaverse.) And this actually isn’t the first time there’s been a connection with Epic and Google over the metaverse; in court in January, while discussing a secret $800 million deal with Unreal Engine and Services, Sweeney let it slip that the deal was about the metaverse.

Unfortunately, the deletions in the revised binding term sheet obscure many key details about what a metaverse browser actually is. But from what is visible in the document, metaverse browsers:

In a blog post today about Google’s changes, Epic also vaguely noted that “Google will take steps to support the future open metaverse.”

When contacted for comment by The edgeEpic spokesperson Natalie Munoz and Google spokesperson Dan Jackson both said they had nothing more to share.