In early 2024, Disney invested more than a billion dollars in Fortnite creator Epic Games and announced some sort of new Disney-powered metaverse experience. We’ve already seen a few aspects of this deal come to fruition, like Fortnite skins for the Incredibles and the Disney Villains, plus new Marvel and Star Wars-themed seasons. There’s been a lot of Disney in Fortnite since that announcement, in other words.
But the big Disney x Fortnite metaverse mode has yet to see the light of day, and the project remains shrouded in mystery. Let’s take a look at what we know about it so far.
What actually is the Disney x Fortnite mode?
We don’t really know. There’s been no teaser images or videos, and nobody is talking about it in terms that we would consider concrete. But here’s how Disney described it in the original announcement:
“In addition to being a world-class games experience and interoperating with Fortnite, the new persistent universe will offer a multitude of opportunities for consumers to play, watch, shop and engage with content, characters and stories from Disney, Pixar, Marvel, Star Wars, Avatar and more. Players, gamers and fans will be able to create their own stories and experiences, express their fandom in a distinctly Disney way, and share content with each other in ways that they love.”
While most of this is too nebulous to accurately break down with any real confidence, the key detail there is that Epic’s new Disney experience is described as being its own thing that “interoperates” with Fortnite, rather than being a Fortnite mode. The reason for that distinction is that Disney x Fortnite will be its own walled garden of content–not every Fortnite skin will work with it, and there will be skins that work in the Disney mode that don’t work in the rest of Fortnite.
“Not every outfit will be able to do everything,” Epic executive Saxs Persson told The Verge in October 2024. “A [Lego] minifig doesn’t hold a gun. Brands should be able to enforce the brand guidelines to the degree that they’re comfortable with that brand being associated with particular ratings.”
In March 2025, meanwhile, a Disney Imagineer, speaking at South by Southwest, indicated that Fortnite’s Disney experience will have some interactivity with the Disney parks in the real world.
“Imagine … what if you could go to the park and have an experience in Smuggler’s Run [and] go on this amazing mission, but then have that affect or connect your gameplay at home?” said Asa Kalama, head of interactive experiences at Disney.
OK, but what will the game/experience actually be like?
Despite the quotes above, we still don’t know anything really tangible about the moment-to-moment experience of this Fortnite x Disney thing. Yes, they’ve teased certain features, like being able to watch Disney content in-game or buy Disney merch, and leaks indicate the experience will at least partially be set in some sort of digital adaptation of the real-world Disneyland park, and so perhaps you’ll be able to ride those Disney rides in the game. And another leak mentions cinematic cutscenes and story content, so it may have a campaign to play through.
But even though we have this smattering of details about what will be included, we still have no real idea of what the core gameplay will be for this Fortnite x Disney thing. All these details are hints, but they don’t add up to any sort of big picture.
When is Disney x Fortnite coming out?
Considering how vague the details have been so far, there’s no reason to expect this Disney x Fortnite project to release this year, and a recent Wall Street Journal report indicated it might be a while before it all comes together. The report claimed the mode is being held up by the many layers of Disney bureaucracy that have to approve anything Epic does with it. However, Epic Games CEO Tim Sweeney claimed the report was false and that Disney actually has been much more responsive than they expected.
Regardless of what is and isn’t true with that story, the total lack of tangible info about the mode means there’s no real reason to think that the Disney x Fortnite project is close to completion. Expect a 2026 launch at the earliest, unless Epic has majorly improved its ability to keep secrets recently.
#Disney #Fortnite
