85%
Highly Likely
You might recall that just two short years ago in February 2024, Disney invested $1.5 billion in Fortnite maker Epic Games, with grand plans to create a persistent Disney universe within Fortnite based on Disney franchises. We've already seen part of this deal bear fruit with the introduction of Disnyeland in Fortnite, and according to a new report from Bloomberg, we're due to get the next fruit in November 2026.
And according to the report, it's an incredibly significant release for Epic, because it is meant to mark the beginning of its comeback tour. Epic Games recently laid of 1,000 employees in a devastating mass update. The news came after Epic had increased the price of Fortnite's premium currency, V-Bucks "to help pay the bills," and when chief executive officer Tim Sweeney announced the cuts, the first reason he cited as to why Epic was making mass cuts again after its mass layoff of 830 employees in 2023 was a "downturn in Fortnite engagement." It's also worth noting that the 2023 layoff also came with a side of V-Bucks getting a price increase.
Despite Fortnite being one of the most-played games across the world in recent years, the game has not lived up to internal expectations, according to current and former employees Bloomberg spoke to for its report. The report also adds that sources they spoke to admitted that Epic had "regularly released products before employees felt they would resonate with consumers." Epic is now "pinning a resurgence" on its upcoming Disney games, in the hopes it can begin to hit those internal expectations again.
The first game, set to arrive in November 2026, is described as "a shooting game along the lines of Embark Studios' hit ARC Raiders, but with Disney characters battling enemies until they can reach an extraction point." That seems like quite the odd pitch, but there are a lot of odd pitches in video games, so who knows.
Interestingly, the report adds, "internal reviewers have expressed concerns that the game mechanics are not very original, but some of the employees are optimistic that Epic will get it right by the launch date." Of course, that doesn't inspire a lot of confidence, but no matter how poorly Fortnite may be doing by now, either by Sweeney's standards or by anyone else's, it's not going away tomorrow, and it's not going away next year.
It's just still difficult to bet against one of the juggernauts, and it'll be interesting to see how players react to this approach, if it is indeed where it lands later this year. Of course, it's worth mentioning that Epic's senior director of global communications, Liz Markman, claimed the report is "not reflective of the ambitions of the Disney collaboration. We are building a new games and entertainment universe of Disney experiences."
It's also worth noting that the report claims Disney is unhappy with Epic's timeline, to which Markman adds, "Epic's timelines are aggressive and always have been. We've heavily moved developers onto projects with releases approaching, while smaller prototyping teams are working on further-off projects."
For Disney's side, a spokesperson said "we remain focused on our long-term collaboration with Epic which continues to have strong momentum and our work to build a transformational games and entertainment universe remains unchanged."
That's all fine and well as for what we may be seeing from Epic and Disney's partnership in the not-too-far future, but what's perhaps more significant is the report's claims of Epic "routinely mass-deleted the company's backlog of bug reports despite them not being resolved." In a statement sent to Wccftech, Markman also added, "When bugs are reported, they go into a tracking and prioritization system. It is normal practice in software development and normal practice at Epic to close low-priority, low-impact bugs without fixing them."
When asked by Bloomberg about the GenAI-powered Darth Vader added into Fortnite that released with several bugs, mostly resulting in it saying things it was not intended to, Epic's Markman said, "We explicitly build ambitious things, ship quickly, and improve with time. Moving fast is the optimal tradeoff for the kinds of games we make nowadays. It's a different approach than Epic in the single-player eras of Unreal Tournament and Gears of War." Markman did however deny that Darth Vader was "rushed."
Markman also denied claims that Epic's chief operating officer is known for yelling at employees, causing some to fear pushing back against him, saying that those claims are "conflating cursing with emphasis with cursing at people" and that "the latter is not tolerated at Epic and is not behavior exhibited by Daniel Vogel."
If anything else, the cursing and yelling are signs that tensions are rising at Epic, especially if employees are willing to start coming out and speaking about what things feel like internally. And whatever these Disney projects are, whether they can actually right the ship for Epic or 'save Fortnite,' whatever it means to 'save' one of the most played video games ever, is yet to be seen.
Update 11/04/2026: This piece has been updated to include an additional statement from Liz Markman on bug deletion.
About the author: David has been writing about videogames, technology, and culture since 2020, with a focus on reporting daily news across multiple publications, including GameDaily.Biz, GameSkinny, and PlayStation Universe before joining Wccftech in 2025. David started contributing as Canada/US reporter for Wccftech's gaming section in 2025. Besides being up-to-date on the industry's movements, he loves interviewing developers, reviewing games, and writing intricate essays about the symbolism and layered meanings to be found in rich narratives as he's done for publications like GamesIndustry.Biz, LostInCult, and others. Outside of games he loves movies, music, theatre, his hometown, and his family, though not necessarily in that order.
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