Fortnite developer Epic Games lays off 1,000 staffers, citing 'industry-wide challenges'

Epic Games, the company behind the live-service behemoth Fortnite and the makers of the ubiquitous game-design software Unreal Engine 5, announced plans to lay off more than 1,000 employees on March 24 in response to "industry-wide challenges" and a "downturn in Fortnite engagement that started in 2025." The news came via a blog post on Epic's official website and was first reported by Bloomberg's Jason Schreier.

In the post, CEO Tim Sweeney trots out the usual phrases we've all become far too familiar with over the past several years: "Some of the challenges we're facing are industry-wide challenges: slower growth, weaker spending, and tougher cost economics; current consoles selling less than last generation's; and games competing for time against other increasingly-engaging forms of entertainment."

Elsewhere in the post, Sweeney gets a bit more specific, alluding to rough times for its marquee game. "The downturn in Fortnite engagement that started in 2025 means we're spending significantly more than we're making, and we have to make major cuts to keep the company funded." (According to Statista, Epic generated $6.01 billion in revenue in 2025.)

The post also makes oblique reference to Epic's ongoing legal battle against Apple, which has essentially centered around Epic's fight to get Fortnite back on the App Store without having to pay Apple a percentage of sales. "Despite Fortnite remaining one of the most successful games in the world, we’ve had challenges delivering consistent Fortnite magic with every season; we're only in the early stages of returning to mobile and optimizing Fortnite for the world's billions of smartphones; and in being the industry's vanguard we have taken a lot of bullets in a battle which is only in the early days of paying off for ourselves and all developers."

The move comes on the heels of Epic raising the prices for Fortnite's in-game currency, known as V-bucks, back on March 10. Those price changes went into effect on March 19. In a blog post announcing those changes, Epic said, "The cost of running Fortnite has gone up a lot, and we’re raising prices to help pay the bills."