⚡ Quick Read
- Bloomberg reports that Epic Games is developing a Disney-themed extraction shooter, targeting a November 2026 release — the first tangible game to come out of Disney’s $1.5 billion investment in Epic.
- The game is described as being “along the lines of” Arc Raiders, with Disney characters battling enemies and fighting toward an extraction point.
- Internal reviewers have flagged concerns about the game lacking originality, though some staff remain hopeful Epic will nail it before launch.
- The Disney–Epic partnership is set to produce at least three games total, but the second has received underwhelming early feedback, and resources were pulled from the third to help keep things on track.
- Epic disputes the Bloomberg report, with its communications chief calling it “not reflective of the ambitions of the Disney collaboration.”
- All of this comes just weeks after Epic laid off over 1,000 employees — including a programmer battling terminal brain cancer who lost his life insurance in the process.
There are few combinations in entertainment you’d expect less than Disney and an extraction shooter — but according to a new report from Bloomberg, that’s exactly what Epic Games is building.
Four current and former Epic employees told Bloomberg the company is on track to release 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.” The game is reportedly targeting November 2026, making it the first major deliverable from Disney’s landmark $1.5 billion investment in the Fortnite maker — and, by the sounds of it, the project Epic is counting on to kick off a comeback.
What We Know About the Game
The game doesn’t have an official name yet, and exactly which Disney franchises will show up remains unconfirmed. What Bloomberg’s sources describe is a co-operative PvPvE experience — players step into the shoes of Disney characters, fight their way through enemies, and race to extract with whatever they’ve gathered. Mechanically, that sits squarely in the mould that Arc Raiders helped popularise: tense, team-based, and built around the tension of making it out alive.
Whether this will be a standalone title or something integrated into the broader Fortnite ecosystem is also still unclear.
There’s a fairly significant catch buried in the report: internal reviewers have told Bloomberg the game mechanics aren’t particularly original in their current form. That’s a genuine concern for a genre that’s already crowded — Arc Raiders, Hunt: Showdown, and Escape from Tarkov all compete in this space. Epic’s counterargument, implied by its communications, is that Disney IP is the differentiator. Beloved characters and worlds can carry a concept that might otherwise feel familiar. Whether that holds up in practice depends entirely on the execution.
“So far, internal reviewers have expressed concerns that the game mechanics are not very original,” Bloomberg wrote, “but some of the employees are optimistic that Epic will get it right by the launch date.”
It’s also worth noting that the recent round of layoffs at Epic — which cut more than 1,000 staff in March 2026 — did affect people working on unannounced Disney game projects. Three former developers told Bloomberg they were already working under what felt like an unrealistic schedule. That doesn’t inspire enormous confidence with a reported November launch window still in play.
Three Games, Not One — and It’s Getting Complicated
The extraction shooter is only the beginning. Bloomberg reports that the Disney partnership is expected to yield “at least” two additional games beyond this first release. That’s a significant undertaking — but the early signs on the other two are less encouraging.
The second game has reportedly received “middling” reviews internally, and to help shore it up, Epic redistributed the team that had been working on the third project. That sort of reshuffling often signals a studio throwing bodies at a problem rather than solving it structurally — though Epic understandably pushed back on that framing.
Liz Markham, Epic’s senior director of global communications, told Bloomberg the reporting was “not reflective of the ambitions of the Disney collaboration. We are building a new games and entertainment universe of Disney experiences.” She also addressed the development timelines directly: “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.”
Disney, for its part, wasn’t about to let any narrative of doubt stand unchallenged. A company 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.”
A Partnership With Enormous Stakes
Disney’s $1.5 billion stake in Epic, announced in February 2024, was described at the time as one of the most significant moves the entertainment giant had ever made into gaming. The vision laid out was ambitious: an “expansive and open games and entertainment universe connected to Fortnite,” drawing on Disney, Pixar, Marvel, Star Wars, and Avatar. Players would be able to create their own stories, live out their fandom, and share experiences across a persistent digital world.
We’ve already seen glimpses of this partnership bear fruit — Toy Story characters landed in Fortnite on April 10, Star Wars assets have been made available for player-created game modes, and a Disneyland-themed area has appeared within the game. But those are additions to something that already existed. The extraction shooter would be the first genuinely new game born from this deal.
The stakes are also considerable for Epic itself. Bloomberg reports that despite Fortnite remaining one of the most-played games in the world, it has consistently fallen short of the company’s internal expectations. Epic is reportedly “pinning a resurgence” on these Disney projects. When a company is staking its comeback on something that hasn’t shipped yet — and reportedly laid off people working on those very projects — the pressure to deliver becomes particularly intense.
There have even been quiet theories circulating that Disney could one day move to acquire Epic outright. Disney’s chairman Josh D’Amaro is known to be a passionate gamer, and the closeness of the relationship has kept those rumours alive. Epic CEO Tim Sweeney holds a majority stake in the company, so nothing happens without him signing off — but it’s the kind of long-game speculation that tends to resurface whenever a deal of this scale deepens.
The Shadow of the Layoffs
It would be hard to write about any Epic news right now without acknowledging the weight of what happened in late March. The studio laid off more than 1,000 people — veterans included — citing a downturn in Fortnite engagement and a company that, in Sweeney’s own words, was “spending significantly more than we’re making.”
The layoffs included people who had spent years shaping Fortnite: Vitaliy Naymushin, the artist who designed Jonesy — the game’s most recognisable face — and Johnny Cash (the developer, not the musician), who had worked on battle pass and quest systems. These weren’t peripheral roles.
But the story that cut through most sharply was that of Mike Prinke. A programmer writer who had been at Epic since 2019, Prinke was battling terminal brain cancer when the layoffs hit. His wife, Jenni Griffin, posted about the family’s situation on Facebook — explaining that losing his job didn’t just mean losing income, it meant losing his life insurance entirely. And because his cancer was now classified as a pre-existing condition, getting new coverage was essentially impossible.
“As I face the reality of losing my husband,” Griffin wrote, “I’m also facing the reality of what type of funeral/burial I can afford.”
The post spread rapidly online, eventually reaching Sweeney via X. He responded publicly: “Epic is in contact with the family and will solve the insurance for them. There is high confidentiality around medical information and it was not a factor in this layoff decision. Sorry to everyone for not recognising this terribly painful situation and handling it in advance.”
Griffin later updated her post to confirm that talks with the appropriate people at Epic had begun. It was a resolution of sorts — but one that only happened because the story went viral. It raised harder questions about the layoff process that no company statement has fully answered.
What’s Next
November 2026 is close. For a game that reportedly has internal doubts swirling around its mechanics, it’s a tight window. But Epic has shipped ambitious projects under pressure before — and Disney IP, used well, carries a pull that pure mechanics sometimes can’t.
If the extraction shooter lands with the right mix of polish and personality, it could become something genuinely interesting. If it doesn’t, Epic will have a lot of explaining to do — to Disney, to investors, and to the 1,000-plus people who were cut ahead of its launch.
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