The stars are aligning for Epic’s ambitious Fortnite aspirations
Epic Games and Disney announced on Wednesday that they are collaborating to create a “entertainment universe” including Disney-themed games and merchandise. The multiyear effort will use Epic’s under-the-hood technology and Fortnite’s social gaming ecosystem to bring characters from Disney’s extensive intellectual property vault to life. Disney paid $1.5 billion for a portion of Epic in the transaction.
In a promotional graphic for the project, Disney and Epic depict their collaboration as a series of futuristic colorful islands floating in space with highways connecting them and a Magic Castle blazing in the center, a beacon of money-printing potential. Those highways, whether actual or figurative, will connect to Epic’s Fortnite, a popular game that has blossomed into a large online social environment.
Fortnite was as widespread and popular as a game could be in its early days. Streaming gaming on Twitch often garnered hundreds of thousands of viewers, spawning a cottage industry of professional Fortnite players who were all obsessed with Epic’s sophisticated battle royale. By 2020, the game has more registered players than the United States’ whole population. The game experienced a rebirth in 2023, with 100 million players last November.
In recent years, Epic has gradually transformed its flagship product into something more akin to a platform or marketplace than a standalone game. Over the years, Fortnite’s colorful seasonal events, kaiju Travis Scott concerts, and user-created sandbox worlds all hinted to these enormous aspirations. Epic tripled down in December by releasing three new games within the game at the same time: Lego Fortnite, a Minecraft/Animal Crossing hybrid, Fortnite Festival, a rhythm game from the company that created Rock Band, and Rocket Racing, a fast-paced racing title from the creators of Rocket League.
That lineup of new titles was already ambitious, but this week’s stunning announcement that Disney is joining Fortnite (or vice versa) takes it to a whole new level. The two firms already have a relationship; Disney invested in Epic through its accelerator program in 2017 and has licensed many of its Marvel and Star Wars characters as Fortnite skins, but the latest $1.5 billion investment indicates a far deeper long-term strategy.
