At D23 2024, Disney revealed a Marvel crossover event for Fortnite, alongside new Disney and Star Wars skins set to be available in the game. After promising major news, seemingly tied to its recent USD $1.5 billion investment in Fortnite maker Epic Games, the announcement seemed fairly lacklustre – but a new Disney Parks blog might explain why not much was actually revealed.
As detailed, Disney and Epic Games’ major collaboration project is still “a few years away.” Disney’s initial investment, announced in February 2024, seemingly marked the very start of its partnership with Epic, so any major projects in the works will still need ample development time before they’re ready for the public eye. As for what’s on the way, the Disney Parks blog also teased new details.
“Imagine a place where all your favourite Disney characters and worlds converge in one connected universe — where you can watch, play, and even create your own adventures,” Allison Citino, Director, Communications, Games, Publishing and Merchandise said. “Earlier this year, Disney announced a new collaboration with Epic Games, the creators of Fortnite, to build [an] all-new games and entertainment universe.”
Based on wording, it does appear this “all-new games and entertainment universe” will be separate from Fortnite, but likely based on the learnings of this game. Epic Games is leading development alongside Disney, and it has ample experience in building audience-grabbing open-world experiences that allow for team play and creativity.
Read: Every D23 Disney x Fortnite reveal: New season, skins, more
Isn’t that just Disney Dreamlight Valley?
So far, Disney and Epic Games haven’t spilled the beans about their collaboration project, but there have been ample clues about what’s in the works. Most notably, an early teaser image for their plans revealed a large map featuring islands based on Disney-owned properties. In this image, one island was specifically Disney-themed, with areas inspired by The Nightmare Before Christmas, Wreck-It Ralph and other franchises. Another island featured Marvel, 20th Century Fox, Lucasfilm, ESPN, Pixar, and Disney+ as brands, and another featured Star Wars.
While the nature of this image was left vague, it could be assumed that Epic Games’ expertise will inspire the birth of a virtual world where each Disney property is explorable in some form – a virtual theme park, of a sort.
Should that be the case, it’s important to ask the question: how will this differ from past Disney “games and entertainment” universes? Disney Dreamlight Valley already lets you meet and greet characters, and explore the full scope of Disney’s most popular animated worlds. Before that, Disney Infinity attempted the same thing, before work on this project was unceremoniously cancelled.
Bringing together all of Disney’s key brands, including more “adult-oriented” content like ESPN could change matters, but it would be fair to say this new universe will need a significant hook to differentiate itself from Disney’s past.
At this stage, we’ll have to wait to see what Disney has planned. It’s clear there’s something major in the works, beyond simple skins and events in Fortnite, but it likely won’t be ready for reveal for at least a few years.
