Epic Video games has introduced it’s shedding over 1,000 workers, which might symbolize as a lot as 23% of its workforce.
In a observe despatched to employees on Tuesday, Epic Video games CEO Tim Sweeney partially blamed a “downturn in Fortnite engagement” on the choice. The sport’s Rocket Racing, Ballistic, and Competition Battle Stage modes will quickly be shut down, Epic concurrently introduced.
Regardless of remaining “some of the profitable video games on the planet”, Fortnite has seen inconsistent engagement between seasons, Sweeney mentioned, and is on the early levels of returning to cellular following years of authorized battles.
“At the moment we’re shedding over 1000 Epic workers,” Tuesday’s observe reads. “I’m sorry we’re right here once more. The downturn in Fortnite engagement that began in 2025 means we’re spending considerably greater than we’re making, and we have now to make main cuts to maintain the corporate funded.
“This layoff, along with over $500 million of recognized value financial savings in contracting, advertising and marketing, and shutting some open roles places us in a extra secure place.”
Employees impacted by layoffs will get a severance bundle “that features a minimum of 4 months of base pay, with extra based mostly on tenure,” Sweeney mentioned.
The CEO claimed that whereas the present state of the video games {industry} as an entire was partly liable for the choice, he mentioned the corporate’s function as “the {industry}’s vanguard” – seemingly a reference in its lengthy authorized battles towards Apple and Google retailer charges – meant that Epic had been “taking lots of bullets”.
“A number of the challenges we’re dealing with are industry-wide challenges – slower progress, weaker spending, and harder value economics, present consoles promoting lower than final technology’s, and video games competing for time towards different increasingly-engaging types of leisure,” he wrote.
“And a few of our challenges are distinctive to Epic. Regardless of Fortnite remaining some of the profitable video games on the planet, we’ve had challenges delivering constant Fortnite magic with each season; we’re solely within the early levels of returning to cellular and optimizing Fortnite for the world’s billions of smartphones; and in being the {industry}’s vanguard we have now taken lots of bullets in a battle which is just within the early days of paying off for ourselves and all builders.”
The Epic cuts comply with a earlier wave of layoffs in 2023, when Epic mentioned it had reduce 830 workers for related causes, which was 16% of its workforce on the time.
Sweeney took effort to emphasise that the layoffs “aren’t associated to AI”, saying: “To the extent it improves productiveness, we need to have as many superior builders growing nice content material and tech as we will.”
“This isn’t our first time being right here,” he added. “Epic survived upheavals in 1990’s with the transfer from 2D to 3D with Unreal 1; within the 2000’s constructing console video games with Gears of Conflict; and in 2012 transferring to on-line gaming with Paragon and Fortnite. Every time, we rebuilt our foundations and earned a renewed management place.”
Final month Epic launched a Yr in Overview retrospective which said that “whereas total gameplay hours declined yr over yr, hours in third-party titles elevated by 4%”, implying that Fortnite’s numbers had dropped.
Earlier this month, the corporate additionally introduced that it was rising the worth of V-Bucks in Fortnite, saying: “The price of operating Fortnite has gone up rather a lot and we’re elevating costs to assist pay the payments.”
As a part of its Yr in Overview, Epic additionally introduced that PC gamers spent $1.16 billion on the Epic Video games Retailer final yr, whereas Statista estimates that Epic Video games generated $6.21 billion in gross income final yr total.
Nonetheless, common supervisor Steve Allison lately informed Polygon that the Epic Video games Retailer was solely “marginally worthwhile”, as a consequence of a low revenue margin on third-party video games and the charges paid to builders and publishers for its weekly free sport deal.
Circana senior director and online game {industry} advisor Mat Piscatella famous on Bluesky that Fortnite was nonetheless the preferred sport on consoles final month, however that engagement had dropped in comparison with the earlier yr.
“Based on Circana’s Participant Engagement Tracker, Fortnite led in US [February 2026] Month-to-month Lively Customers throughout each PlayStation (35% of actives enjoying) and Xbox (31%),” he wrote. “The common PlayStation participant engaged with Fortnite for 16 hours within the month (vs 21 final Feb), with Xbox gamers averaging 15 hours (vs 19 final Feb).”
In his observe to workers, Sweeney said: “What we now have to do is evident – construct superior Fortnite experiences with contemporary seasonal content material, gameplay, story, and stay occasions; speed up developer instruments with larger stability and functionality as we evolve from Unreal Engine 5 and UEFN to Unreal Engine 6. And we’ll be kicking off the following technology of Epic with big launch plans in direction of the tip of the yr.”
