Disney to invest $1.5B in Epic Games
After multiple collaborations over the years, Epic Games and Disney are now planning to create a new experience for gamers. Disney will invest $1.5 billion into Epic Games as part of the ‘open games and entertainment universe’ in Fortnite.
“Our exciting new relationship with Epic Games will bring together Disney’s beloved brands and franchises with the hugely popular Fortnite in a transformational new games and entertainment universe,” said Robert A. Iger, CEO of Disney.
Not the first video game stint for Disney
There have been multiple games from the Disney universe in the last few years. The company has also done multiple collaborations with Fortnite. These include playable characters from different IPs like Star Wars and Marvel.
However, the most recent collaboration seems like an announcement for a completely different from your average team-up. As per Disney’s CEO, the company plans to make an entirely new games and entertainment universe.
The official statement from Disney says, “Players, gamers and fans will be able to create their own stories and experiences, express their fandom in a distinctly Disney way, and share content in ways that they love”.
New Metaverse?
By the statements from the companies, the entire collaboration seems like another metaverse-type plan. While not explicitly mentioned, the vision description from both companies does a great job of what they are expecting.
Epic Games CEO, Tim Sweeney said, “We’re collaborating on something entirely new to build a persistent, open and interoperable ecosystem that will bring together the Disney and Fortnite communities.”
As per multiple reports, this will be a new multi-year project that will be using Unreal Engine. More details on what it will be is yet to be made public. The announcement just said that people will be able to ‘play, watch, shop and engage’ with content from Disney.
