Disney Explains Why Its Fortnite Deal Is So Important — “We Have To Adapt”

Epic Games is investing $1.5 billion into Epic Games to create what sounds like a Disney metaverse within Fortnite, and now one of Disney’s top bosses has shared a few more details on the company’s plans.

Disney boss Josh D’Amaro–who is among the candidates to become Disney’s new CEO after Bob Iger leaves–told The Hollywood Reporter that Disney is planning to work with Epic to create “a place where you can play games, a place where you can be social, a place where users can generate their own content.”

Essentially, D’Amaro said Disney’s aim to create an entire “universe” where “all our stories can come to life.”

“They can come to life in different forms, [like] games. They can come to life in ways that you can just interact with and play with the franchise in a way that’s meaningful to you, a place where you can actually build,” he said. “And we think that this is going to be a place where all fans can come and interact 365 days a year.”

At D23, D’Amaro said Walt Disney himself was an “adventurer” and a “risk-taker,” going on to say what Disney is now trying to achieve through Fortnite is an extension of that spirit.

“We should never rest on past success. We should always look for the next big idea, the next big challenge,” he said. “If we’d always relied on what worked in the past, the Walt Disney Company might not exist today. As consumer preferences continue to shift, we have to adapt, or we are going to be left behind.”

Characters and content from Disney’s Pixar, Marvel, Star Wars, and Avatar brands, among others, will be represented in Fortnite. Disney and Epic have yet to officially unveil any specific projects in Fortnite tied to Disney, but many are hoping to see some kind of “virtual Disney World.”

Fortnite, of course, is no longer just one game–instead, it’s more akin to a platform these days. In addition to the main battle royale game, Fortnite hosts games like Rocket Racing, Fortnite Festival, and Lego Fortnite, along with countless other user-created games and experiences on the platform. Whatever Epic and Disney might be cooking up could be just the latest game to exist on the Fortnite platform.

While fans have to wait a bit longer for this to materialize, Pixar characters Mr. Incredible, Elastagirl, and Frozone are now available inside Fortnite. Some Disney villains, including Maleficent and Cruella de Vil are coming to Fortnite this Fall.

Whereas Disney used to develop games in-house via its own Disney Interactive Studios, the company subsequently shut this down and instead works with outside teams as part of licensing arrangements.

One of the next licensed Disney games in the works from an outside studio is Indiana Jones and the Great Circle from Microsoft. Not every Disney game succeeds, though, as Ubisoft’s Star Wars Outlaws failed to sell up to expectations, though Ubisoft isn’t giving up just yet.