News Disney partners with Epic Games to launch gaming and entertainment universe tied to Fortnite

[UNCgolf]

As someone who does game dev in my free time using the UE5 engine and loves Disney stuff, PLEASE do not buy UE5/Epic Games as whole. The engine right now has to be some osrt of a loss leader to make it free and I don't think that would fly for long. I love it as an engine and don't think it would survive well under a company that just doesn't know the space.

It's free to use, but if a company actually releases products using the engine they have to pay royalty fees to Epic. I think it's 5% of all revenue over $1 million.

If Witcher 4 generates as much revenue as Witcher 3 (which seems pretty likely, if not even more), now that CD Projekt Red is using Unreal Engine, Epic would end up with $30+ million (assuming the 5% number is correct) in royalty fees just for that one title.

Obviously most games don't sell anywhere near that level, but they don't need to for Epic's purposes if there's enough total volume.

 

[AidenRodriguez731]

It's free to use, but if a company actually releases products using the engine they have to pay royalty fees to Epic. I think it's 5% of all revenue over $1 million.

If Witcher 4 generates as much revenue as Witcher 3 (which seems pretty likely, if not even more), now that CD Projekt Red is using Unreal Engine, Epic would end up with $30+ million (assuming the 5% number is correct) in royalty fees just for that one title.

Obviously most games don't sell anywhere near that level, but they don't need to for Epic's purposes if there's enough total volume.

Correct, if I recall though that was a more recent thing but even then for indie developers, you're almost certainly not getting to that 1 million in revenue especially as its atleast specified it's only of game sales.

 

[ChrisFL]

Reread the rules.

15. WDWMAGIC Forums AI Usage Policy - We encourage the use of AI tools to enhance the quality of your posts by fixing grammar, spelling, and improving readability. However, it is not acceptable to use AI to create entire posts. The WDWMAGIC Forums are a space for sharing genuine human experiences and knowledge, and we value the authenticity and personal insights that come from real human interaction. Please ensure that your contributions reflect your own thoughts and experiences.

 

[MrPromey]

Correct, if I recall though that was a more recent thing but even then for indie developers, you're almost certainly not getting to that 1 million in revenue especially as its atleast specified it's only of game sales.

"More recent" is kind of a relative thing. It's been that way for more than a decade so there are a ton of people in the industry who've never known it any other way at this point while there are seasoned professionals who I'm sure still remember when there was no advertised price with it being a custom quote for each developer based on what they needed and planned to do with it.

 

[MisterPenguin]

15. WDWMAGIC Forums AI Usage Policy - We encourage the use of AI tools to enhance the quality of your posts by fixing grammar, spelling, and improving readability. However, it is not acceptable to use AI to create entire posts. The WDWMAGIC Forums are a space for sharing genuine human experiences and knowledge, and we value the authenticity and personal insights that come from real human interaction. Please ensure that your contributions reflect your own thoughts and experiences.

There were no thoughts or experiences. I was listing salient facts. And I labeled it as coming from an A.I. and not my own personal thoughts.

People in the movie threads post facts from Box Office sites all the time apart from their own personal opinions. I repost the weekly top 10 streamers from Nielsen.

If I used Wikipedia to look up facts and posted them... it would be the same thing.

In fact, if anyone used any search engine, including Google, to look up facts and repost them here... they'd be using A.I.

You're welcome to report me so you and @Ayla can be schooled that you didn't catch me in a gotcha.

 

[Joel]

Hey, Perplexity, of the top 20 video games ranked on scores from revues, or numbers of players, or financial success in the past 10 years were built on Unreal Engine?

If you mean “among top-ranked games from the last 10 years, which were built on Unreal Engine,” the answer is: many of them were, especially in the highly rated and best-selling categories. Clear examples from the sources I found include Fortnite, Rocket League, PUBG / PUBG Mobile, Gears 5, Hellblade: Senua’s Sacrifice, Bioshock Infinite, Final Fantasy VII Remake, Batman: Arkham Knight, and Ark: Survival Evolved.vanas+1youtubethegamer​

​

What I can verify​

• Fortnite is explicitly described as built on Unreal Engine and as a major revenue success.becomecgpro+1
• Rocket League is listed among Unreal Engine games and was a major commercial hit.reddityoutubebecomecgpro
• PUBG and PUBG Mobile appear in Unreal Engine game lists and are also among the most-played games by player counts.wikipedia+1
• Final Fantasy VII Remake, Gears 5, and Hellblade: Senua’s Sacrifice are also identified as Unreal Engine games in the sources I found.youtubebecomecgpro
• Older but still top-tier critical/commercial successes like Batman: Arkham Knight and Bioshock Infinite were also built on Unreal Engine.fandom+2

Short answer​

So, yes — a substantial share of the top 20 games by reviews, player counts, or revenue from roughly the last decade were built with Unreal Engine.​

Your poorly specified (not to mention grammatically incorrect) question didn't even get a real answer. What actually are the top 20 games based on that jumble of metrics, and exactly how many used UE? "Many of them"? "A substantial share"? Thanks, I could have produced that answer myself without revving up a GPU.

Also, some of the "salient facts" are just wrong. Gears 5 and Hellblade are not top 20 games of the past 10 years no matter how you slice it. Bioshock Infinite was released in 2013. Batman: Arkham Knight came out in 2015, and the only top 20 list that the '23 Switch version could ever hope to land on is Top 20 Crappiest Ports.

Using search engines to find properly sourced information for your post is not equivalent to blindly relaying LLM-generated content without fact-checking or additional personal commentary. If doing so isn't against this forum's rule on AI usage, then the rule should probably be rewritten or removed.

You're welcome to report me

I would, but first I need to ask Gemini how penguins deal with snitches.

 

[Ayla]

There were no thoughts or experiences. I was listing salient facts. And I labeled it as coming from an A.I. and not my own personal thoughts.

People in the movie threads post facts from Box Office sites all the time apart from their own personal opinions. I repost the weekly top 10 streamers from Nielsen.

If I used Wikipedia to look up facts and posted them... it would be the same thing.

In fact, if anyone used any search engine, including Google, to look up facts and repost them here... they'd be using A.I.

You're welcome to report me so you and @Ayla can be schooled that you didn't catch me in a gotcha.

It's too bad you can't differentiate between search engines and AI.

 

[Mr. Engagement]

As someone who does game dev in my free time using the UE5 engine and loves Disney stuff, PLEASE do not buy UE5/Epic Games as whole. The engine right now has to be some osrt of a loss leader to make it free and I don't think that would fly for long. I love it as an engine and don't think it would survive well under a company that just doesn't know the space.

@UNCgolf mentioned this, but free-to-use has been the key to the widespread adoption and usage of UE (now on 5.5). And it's being used to design MUCH more than video games (in the conventional sense)! Taking a cut of sales has been a good model for Epic, and would be a boon for Disney's plans for user-generated content.

 

[Pizza Moon]

AI is here to stay, so get used to it, and there is a difference between using AI as a tool and just being lazy and basically automating your own thoughts instead of coming up with your own.

If people can’t see the difference God help us.

 

[Mr. Engagement]

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2026-04-10/epic-games-pins-fortnite-comeback-on-disney-partnership

This Bloomberg article says Epic is developing an extraction shooter for Disney, and that Epic is pinning their future on the partnership.

 

[Tha Realest]

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2026-04-10/epic-games-pins-fortnite-comeback-on-disney-partnership

This Bloomberg article says Epic is developing an extraction shooter for Disney, and that Epic is pinning their future on the partnership.

Uh oh.

 

[VJ]

the relevant portion of the article:

The company is pinning a resurgence on games it’s been developing with Walt Disney Co., which agreed to invest $1.5 billion in Epic two years ago. Epic is on track to launch the first game in its new Disney partnership in November, according to four current and former employees. It will be a shooting game along the lines of Embark Studios’ hit Arc Raiders, but with Disney characters battling enemies until they can reach an extraction point, according to the people. So far, internal reviewers have expressed concerns that the game mechanics are not very original, but some of the employees are optimistic that Epic will get it right by the launch date.

The Disney deal will reap at least two more games, the people said. Early versions of the second title received middling internal reviews, according to two of the people. Resources for the third game were reallocated to the first two after reports that Disney was disappointed by Epic’s release timeline.

Liz Markman, the senior director of global communications at Epic, said Bloomberg’s reporting is “not reflective of the ambitions of the Disney collaboration. We are building a new games and entertainment universe of Disney experiences.”
Markman said “Epic’s timelines are aggressive and always have been. We've heavily moved developers onto projects with releases approaching, while smaller prototyping teams are working on further-off projects.”

A Disney spokesperson said “we remain focused on our long-term collaboration with Epic which continues to have strong momentum and our work to build a transformational games and entertainment universe remains unchanged.”

Epic laid off several employees working on the unannounced titles, spurring concerns from three former workers that people assigned to work on the Disney collaboration will be asked to adhere to an unrealistic schedule – part of a pattern that seven current and former employees believe may have contributed to challenges at the company. Epic routinely released products in what some employees called “Version 0.5,” the people said, suggesting they were only half ready.

 

[tanc]

I’m a massive Kingdom Hearts fan and I think the saddest thing is how long those games are taking to make now. Waiting 10 years for 1 game is just getting ridiculous at this point. There’s many variables to it but the first 10 years for the series were such a peak time.

 

[Pizza Moon]

I’m a massive Kingdom Hearts fan and I think the saddest thing is how long those games are taking to make now. Waiting 10 years for 1 game is just getting ridiculous at this point. There’s many variables to it but the first 10 years for the series were such a peak time.

AI will help with that. So much of the gaming industry is just tedious work that can be automated. Will help with bloated budgets too.

Gonna be fun to see.

 

[Mr. Engagement]

I’m a massive Kingdom Hearts fan and I think the saddest thing is how long those games are taking to make now. Waiting 10 years for 1 game is just getting ridiculous at this point. There’s many variables to it but the first 10 years for the series were such a peak time.

Since Kingdom Hearts 3 was built using Epic's Unreal Engine (and the upcoming 4 is, too), I'd imagine Disney's buy-in could speed up development.

I think we may see KH actually move into Fortnite. Not just a Sora skin, but literally as a game mode.

 

[tanc]

They had a perfectly good old engine but abandoned it for UE. It’s really unfortunate because the old PS2 ran the games absolutely beautifully on PS4. The old engine really shined in HD. I just wish they churned out content faster.

You don’t need state of the art graphics for KH, but that’s gaming nowadays. I also imagine Disney is a huge influence. Back then, the games felt a lot more free in expression. Now they are essentially rewatching Disney films, whereas before they took a lot of liberties in the stories. Birth by Sleep and KH1 have some cool tie ins that probably would never happen in modern KH.

 

[Mr. Engagement]

They had a perfectly good old engine but abandoned it for UE. It’s really unfortunate because the old PS2 ran the games absolutely beautifully on PS4. The old engine really shined in HD. I just wish they churned out content faster.

You don’t need state of the art graphics for KH, but that’s gaming nowadays. I also imagine Disney is a huge influence. Back then, the games felt a lot more free in expression. Now they are essentially rewatching Disney films, whereas before they took a lot of liberties in the stories. Birth by Sleep and KH1 have some cool tie ins that probably would never happen in modern KH.

I don't know, they allow Disney characters to shoot, bomb, and sword fight in Fortnite. This week, Buzz Lightyear and Zurg skins are in the shop. I think they're relaxing their grip on what their characters are allowed to do in games.

Also, Disney is trying to figure out (and monetize, of course) user-generated content. They're already incorporating user-generated games/lands/worlds built using Fortnite's Creator Portal for users and Unreal Fortnite Editor for game devs.

 

[Pizza Moon]

I don't know, they allow Disney characters to shoot, bomb, and sword fight in Fortnite. This week, Buzz Lightyear and Zurg skins are in the shop. I think they're relaxing their grip on what their characters are allowed to do in games.

Also, Disney is trying to figure out (and monetize, of course) user-generated content. They're already incorporating user-generated games/lands/worlds built using Fortnite's Creator Portal for users and Unreal Fortnite Editor for game devs.

Yeah if anything Disney seems to be moving towards less rigid control particularly for gaming, but even their films seem to be moving away from total HR approval to release, which is good, we’ll see by now much tho for their movies, but gaming they’ve already started shifting to where our culture actually is, and it’s a lot less Puritan than Disney’s output would have people believe.

People, kids teens, adults just want to have fun in quality ways that feel naturally human without being talked down to or making ugly character designs, so Fortnite’s skins, combat, language-use during online play or with friends, and vibes in general is where our culture has been for ages. You can tell exactly how Kpop met the moment while a movie like Turning Red does not for this reason.

Moving away from their vault limited Blu-ray release strategy, Deadpool in the MCU, and R-rated/TV-MA content on Disney+ were not always inevitable, always required a culture shift at Disney. They were always the right move, but it took courage to actually do it.