According to tech reporter Alex Heath, via The Town podcast, Disney executives are reportedly keen on buying Fortnite developer Epic Games, waiting for the right moment to make a bid for the company, this follows Disney’s prior $1.5 billion investment in Epic Games in February 2024.
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].”
We will be watching this story closely.
