Epic Games CEO Calls ‘BS’ on Report of Slow Fortnite Disney Universe Collaboration
Fortnite's parent company Epic Games and entertainment giant Disney in February 2024 announced a collaboration to bring Disney characters and stories to the popular game.
That was over a year ago now, and some executives at Epic are getting antsy and criticizing "slow decision-making at Disney," according to the Wall Street Journal. The game is scheduled to release in fall of 2026.
Epic CEO Tim Sweeney in a post on X said that criticism is unfounded.
"The anonymous quote is BS," Sweeney said. "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."
The anonymous quote also criticized Disney for alleged "signoffs needed from so many different divisions."
To be fair, developing what could end up being almost an entirely new game in under three years is a pretty short timeline. Grand Theft Auto VI has been in development for over six years, for example. And while some may say that's because the sixth GTA requires all news maps to be developed, that could be true too for the Disney-Fortnite collaboration.
The two companies haven't exactly told players everything that will be included in the new version of the game.
"Our exciting new relationship with Epic Games will bring together Disney’s beloved brands and franchises with the hugely popular Fortnite in a transformational new games and entertainment universe,” Disney CEO Robert Iger said.
Sweeney didn't say much in the way of details either.
"Now we’re collaborating on something entirely new to build a persistent, open and interoperable ecosystem that will bring together the Disney and Fortnite communities," he said.
Players don't seem to know exactly what skins will be offered either, though some Disney skins are already available, according to E Sports Insider. Other concepts have been floated too.
On Reddit and elsewhere there is much anticipation and consternation over how the collaboration will turn out. Some players say it won't be anything more than new skins to buy and mini games while others love the idea of playing as "Cinderella with a glock."
Either way, there will be a lot of people who end up getting hands-on experience with the results of the collaboration since Fortnite has roughly half a billion registered users and more than 200 million active players in August 2025, according to ActivePlayer.