Crisis at Epic Games: Over 1000 jobs lost, "Fortnite" weakens

Domagoj Belancic

25/3/2026

Translation: machine translated

Epic Games is making mass redundancies. Among other things, a weakening "Fortnite" is to blame.

In an internal memo, Tim Sweeney, CEO of Epic Games, announces massive cost-cutting measures for his company. He writes: «Today we are laying off over 1000 employees at Epic Games. I'm sorry that we've reached this point again.»

The redundancies represent around 20 per cent of Epic Games' total workforce. Sweeney cites a weakening «Fortnite» as the reason for the extreme measures: «The decline in player activity [...] means that we are currently spending significantly more money than we are earning. We therefore have to take drastic measures to secure the company's financing in the long term.»

Mat Piscatella from the US market research institute Circana confirms Sweeney's assessment with figures for the console version of «Fortnite». In February, the game was the most played game on Playstation (35 per cent of users) and Xbox (31 per cent). At the same time, playtime fell significantly compared to the previous year - on Playstation by almost 24 per cent, on Xbox by around 21 per cent.

Consequences for «Fortnite»

The fact that «Fortnite» is in crisis was first felt by fans - or their wallets - at the beginning of March. Epic announced in a blog post a hefty price increase for the in-game currency V-Bucks, with the following justification: «Fortnite's operating costs have risen sharply, which is why we need to raise prices to cover rising costs.»

After the cancellations, things are getting even worse for players: Epic is removing a total of three game modes from the game. Affected are «Rocket Racing», «Ballistic» and «Festival Battle Stage».

In a post on X, the company explains this step as follows: «We have developed many different modes for 'Fortnite'. However, in some cases we have not been able to create something that attracts and retains enough players. Therefore, we will be discontinuing the following modes on the dates below - and we are grateful to everyone who has played them.»

«Rocket Racing», the racing-in-game from «Rocket League» studio Psyonix, will be discontinued in October. The «Counter-Strike» copy «Ballistic» is only available until 16 April, as is the competitive music game «Festival Battle Stage». «Festival Main Stage» and «Festival Jam Stage» will remain in the game (for now).

Epic Games as tragic heroes

Sweeney also uses the memo to put Epic Games in a positive light. The CEO emphasised that the battle against Google and Apple had cost the company a great deal. As a reminder, Epic Games was in a years-long legal battle with Google and Apple over the 30 per cent commission on transactions in their stores.

In the meantime, Epic and Google have come to terms in a court case - and «Fortnite» has returned to Android: «We are just at the beginning of our return to mobile platforms [...]. And as a pioneer in the industry, we've taken a lot of hits in this fight - a fight that is only slowly starting to pay off for us and for developers as a whole.»

Crisis in the gaming industry and future outlook with Unreal Engine 6

Sweeney goes on to argue that the gaming industry as a whole is in a predicament. Slower growth, the difficult economic situation, challenging cost structures in game development and weaker console sales are causing problems for the industry. Sweeney emphasises that the use of AI in the context of game development has no connection with the announced cost-cutting measures.

Sweeney remains optimistic despite the crisis and justifies his stance with a look at the past: «This is not the first time we have been in such a situation. Epic Games has already survived several upheavals: in the 1990s with the switch from 2D to 3D with Unreal; in the 2000s with the development of console games with 'Gears of War'; and in 2012 with the move to online games with 'Paragon' and 'Fortnite'. Each time, we've rebuilt our foundations and earned a renewed leadership role in the industry.»

Finally, the CEO looks to the future: «What we need to do now is clear: create great experiences in 'Fortnite' - with fresh seasonal content, gameplay, story and live events. At the same time, we want to advance our developer tools faster, with more stability and new capabilities, as we move from Unreal Engine 5 and 'Unreal Editor for Fortnite' towards Unreal Engine 6.»

The «next generation of Epic» should be unveiled by the end of the year.

Domagoj Belancic

Senior Editor

Domagoj.Belancic@digitecgalaxus.ch

My love of video games was unleashed at the tender age of five by the original Gameboy. Over the years, it's grown in leaps and bounds.

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