Disney executives are reportedly keen on fully buying Fortnite developer Epic Games at some point.
The claim comes from veteran tech reporter Alex Heath, via The Town podcast, who said that senior executives were waiting for the right moment to make a bid for the metaverse game, following Disney’s prior $1.5 billion investment in developer Epic Games.
Fortnite is the jewel in the crown of Epic’s portfolio — alongside its pervasive development toolkit Unreal Engine — and a significant money spinner. But the past year has been rocky for the game — something that led to Epic Games shedding 1,000 staff members last week, due in part to a downturn in engagement through 2025.
Disney, meanwhile, is already heavily invested in Fortnite, with a dozens of character skins and crossovers already part of the game (including Star Wars, Marvel, Pixar and Disney animated characters) and a long-awaited Disney-specific mode that’s set to offer fans a place to play, watch, create and shop.
“I know for a fact there are senior executives in Disney who want them to buy Epic and are just waiting for that moment,” Heath said, “and then there are others who think it’s a bad idea. If Epic ever sold, if it ever decided to call it quits on being an independent company, Disney would be the most natural home for it for a lot of reasons.”
Here, Heath referenced the upcoming Disney mode — concept art for which looks like a virtual Disneyland park with various themed areas — and the idea it just became “Disney’s gaming platform.” Despite two years of development work, however, there’s still no suggestion of when it will finally arrive.
Last year, Sweeney blasted a Wall Street Journal report that claimed development of the mode was being hampered by slow decision-making at Disney, something he claimed was “BS.” Still, that report stated that the mode — announced back in March 2024 — would not be ready before this fall, something which is expected to be borne out by reality.
“Epic is a founder-controlled company,” Heath continued. “Tim Sweeney has full voting stock control and can make unilateral decisions and it’s really up to him. As we saw, he was the guy who went to bat against the App Stores, against Apple and Google to open those up. And it’s almost an ideological crusade when you’re running a company like Epic to do something like that. And he even acknowledges in the layoff email that it cost [Epic].”
One Disney executive who strongly backed the company’s investment in Fortnite was Josh D’Amaro — the same person who recently won the race to become the company’s new CEO. While his tenure has only just begun, it’s believed that D’Amaro will want to quickly make his mark in the role this year — and he has previously remarked that the launch of Fortnite’s Disney mode will be a major moment for the company going forward.
Just this week, former long-term Disney executive Kevin Mayer said he expected D’Amaro to make “bold steps” this year and grow the company’s gaming output. “I think Epic or some other video game asset would be a great addition to The Walt Disney Company’s asset base,” Mayer told CNBC.
Fortnite itself has often struggled to launch other modes for its game that stray too far from its core battle royale proposition. Interest has waned for the racing, music and LEGO modes it launched to fanfare in late 2023, and Epic has previously admitted that it’s struggled to fully explain to consumers that Fortnite is more than just a battle royale. But plans are seemingly afoot for some kind of new era, as mentioned by Sweeney in his email on the layoffs. “We’ll be kicking off the next generation of Epic with huge launch plans towards the end of the year,” he wrote.
Announcing the layoffs last week, Sweeney said Epic Games had reacted to a downturn in interest for Fortnite that began in 2025, though analysts told IGN that fewer people playing the game’s veteran battle royale was only one of its problems. The company has spent years fighting costly legal battles with Apple and Google, while bankrolling the Epic Games Store as it attempts to rival Steam. And then there’s the explosive growth of Roblox, which Fortnite has now fallen far behind. Many fans feel like it is Epic Games’ own staff that have paid the price, while those who remain at the company say they simply don’t know how Fortnite will look later this year and beyond with close to a quarter of the company’s staff gone. Perhaps the game’s big new Disney offering will turn it all around?
Tom Phillips is IGN’s News Editor. You can reach Tom at [email protected] or find him on Bluesky @tomphillipseg.bsky.social
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