Epic Games is reportedly launching a Disney-themed extraction shooter this November, finally giving shape to what Disney got for its $1.5 billion investment back in 2024. Until now, that partnership mostly meant a bunch of Disney skins in Fortnite.
The game is one of three Disney projects Epic is working on, and it's positioned as the company's comeback play after laying off 1,000 employees in March due to dropping Fortnite engagement. Think Arc Raiders style gameplay, where players fight for resources and escape through extraction points, but with Disney characters instead of post-apocalyptic survivors.
Internal reviews haven't been glowing. Bloomberg reports that reviewers inside Epic have flagged the mechanics as "not very original." Still, it's apparently the most promising of the three Disney games in development. The second title got lukewarm internal feedback, and Epic pulled resources from the third after Disney expressed disappointment with the release timeline.
Epic's communications team pushed back on the characterization, saying "This is not reflective of the ambitions of the Disney collaboration. We are building a new games and entertainment universe of Disney experiences." Whether that universe lives inside Fortnite or exists as standalone games remains unclear.
The timing matters because Epic has been trying to position Fortnite as a multiverse platform to compete with Roblox. They've launched multiple games within Fortnite over the past few years, though they just shut down three of them (Rocket Racing, Ballistic, and Fortnite Festival Battle Stage) during the recent layoffs. Some of those laid-off employees were working on these unannounced Disney games.
For anyone building in the AI and gaming space, this is a reminder that even massive IP partnerships and billion-dollar investments don't guarantee execution. Disney wanted a full entertainment universe where players could "play, watch, shop and engage" with their entire catalog. What they're getting sounds more modest, but if it drives engagement, the original vision might not matter.
