In February 2024, Disney announced a $1.5 billion investment in Epic Games to create a persistent universe within Fortnite based on its own franchises: Disney, Pixar, Marvel, Star Wars, Avatar, and more.
We later learned a bit about that project from Epic Games Executive Vice President Saxs Persson:
Disney wants a persistent place where all things Disney can be there, but they want to be part of an ecosystem we’ve built. We see the power of ecosystems interoperating as being really the magic here. From a player perspective, you want to flow between a Fortnite experience, a Disney experience, or any experience. We see the power of ecosystems interoperating as being really the magic here. From a player perspective, you want to be able to flow between a Fortnite experience, a Disney experience, or any experience really.
Now, though, the Wall Street Journal has published a report that cites anonymous sources within Epic who allegedly are disgruntled with the speed of the collaboration. According to the report, the project is codenamed Bulldog, but it is being slowed down by Disney's requirement for signoffs 'from so many divisions' before proceeding.
However, Epic founder and president Tim Sweeney has countered this claim. Posting on X, he set the record straight on the matter:
The anonymous quote is BS. The speed of Disney and Epic collaborations like Darth Vader has been awesome and is around 10x the ordinary speed of media company dealings in this business. We even provided a statement to the writer of this article saying so, but they chose not to print it.
Sweeney did not, however, appear to counter the report's claim that the Fortnite x Disney project is targeting a Fall 2026 release window 'at the earliest'.
About the author: With over two decades of experience in gaming journalism, Alessio Palumbo has led the gaming vertical at Wccftech since August 2015. He started working at a young age for Italian websites like Everyeye.it, Gamestar.it, Nextgame.it, and Multiplayer.it before kickstarting the indie English-language publication Worlds Factory as its founder and Editor in Chief. In the last decade, he has coordinated the overall output of Wccftech's gaming section, managed PR relations, assigned reviews, produced daily news coverage, edited gaming content as needed, and delivered game reviews. Arguably, his trademark content is the long series of exclusive developer interviews that have been cited by Wikipedia and by the biggest news media and gaming publications. His passion for technology also makes him knowledgeable when it comes to gaming hardware and tech. His favorite genres include RPGs, MMORPGs, and action/adventure games.
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