Fortnite teams being restructured

Epic is reshaping its Fortnite business after a March layoff of more than 1,000 employees, cutting smaller modes and concentrating staff on fewer projects. (thesixthaxis.com) Chief executive Tim Sweeney said on March 24 that Fortnite engagement had been sliding since 2025 and that Epic was “spending significantly more than we’re making,” alongside a plan to cut $500 million in costs. The company also said the layoffs were not related to artificial intelligence. (thesixthaxis.com) At the same time, Epic started shutting down recent Fortnite add-ons that did not stick. Ballistic and Festival Battle Stage are scheduled to go offline on April 16, 2026, and Rocket Racing is set to end in October 2026. (gameinformer.com) New reporting on April 10 said Epic is now betting heavily on its Disney partnership, with Bloomberg reporting that the first major release is on track for November 2026. That project is described as an extraction shooter, a format where players fight, collect gear, and try to escape alive with what they found. (bloomberg.com) That is a narrower strategy than the one Epic pitched in recent years, when it expanded Fortnite into a platform with racing, music, creator tools, and a wider mix of first-party experiments. In its 2023 layoff memo, Epic said time spent in third-party Fortnite experiences had already exceeded time spent in Epic’s own first-party modes. (epicgames.com) The Disney tie-up has been central to that platform push since February 7, 2024, when Disney said it would invest $1.5 billion for an equity stake in Epic and help build a “persistent universe” connected to Fortnite and powered by Unreal Engine. Disney said that universe would include Disney, Pixar, Marvel, Star Wars, and Avatar properties. (thewaltdisneycompany.com) Bloomberg reported that some current and former employees said recent Fortnite updates and side projects had underperformed internally, and that internal reviewers had raised concerns that the Disney shooter’s mechanics were not very original. The same report said some employees still believed Epic could improve the game before launch. (bloomberg.com) Epic has not publicly announced the Disney game itself, but it has publicly confirmed the broader retrenchment: fewer active Fortnite side modes, lower engagement than in 2025, and a reorganization around core work that management believes can still scale. (epicgames.com)