Image: Epic Games
Disney and Epic Games are partnering up to make new games, build a shared universe and of course, bring more Disney skins to Fortnite.
The Walt Disney Company has announced a whopping $1.5 billion investment in Fortnite developer Epic Games today. The two companies plan to team up for, “an all-new games and entertainment universe that will further expand the reach of beloved Disney stories and experiences.” This shared universe will include crossovers with franchises like Disney, Pixar, Marvel, Star Wars and Avatar - though not all of them will be in Fortnite alone.
According to the announcement, Disney plans to use Epic Games’ Unreal Engine to create a, “persistent universe,” where anyone can, “play, watch, shop and engage with content, characters, and stories,” from the many, many franchises under its corporate umbrella. That means Disney skins are coming to Fortnite, sure, but that will be the least of it.
Epic Games and Disney are partnering up
Disney is making a massive $1.5 billion investment in Epic Games to break into the live-service games industry, though the partnership is currently pending regulatory approval. In both companies’ official announcements, Disney announced that it was partnering with Epic to create, “an all-new games and entertainment universe,” containing its various franchises, and would be making a $1.5 billion investment to own an equity stake in Epic Games.
The new ‘persistent universe’ is said to offer, “opportunities for consumers to play, watch, shop and engage with content, characters and stories from Disney, Pixar, Marvel, Star Wars, Avatar and more,” using the Unreal Engine, which sure sounds like a boatload of live-service content to me. Disney CEO Robert A. Iger calls the partnership, “Disney’s biggest entry ever into the world of games,” while Epic Games CEO Tim Sweeney confirms that the project will tie into Fortnite saying, “we’re collaborating on something entirely new to build a persistent, open and interoperable ecosystem that will bring together the Disney and Fortnite communities.”
The way Sweeney’s statement is worded suggests that this universe - whatever shape it ends up taking - won’t just be limited to Fortnite. The announcement included a visual of four different worlds from franchises like Star Wars, Marvel and Disney Animation existing in the same space as a virtual Disney World. The company has worked with Epic Games for Fortnite content before, such as the Battle Royale mode’s Marvel-themed season Nexus War, and various Disney skins like Jack Skellington, Anakin Skywalker and Din Djarin. Who knows? Maybe we’ll get Mickey Mouse in Fortnite next.
This isn’t the first time companies have made similar investments into Epic Games’ metaverse. Sony and Lego invested 1$ billion each into the company back in 2022, and out of that partnership sprung the recent Lego Fortnite survival mode. Clearly, more companies are becoming interested in Epic’s vision of the metaverse. Despite all this success, however, Epic itself has been laying off hundreds of staff due to ‘unrealistic spending’.