Epic Games is laying off over 1,000 staff, blames worsening Fortnite engagement

Players are seemingly not playing enough Fortnite, and Epic Games says it has to let go of over 1,000 staff to keep the company funded.

Epic Games, the company responsible for the Unreal Engine game development engine and the hugely popular live service experience Fortnite, just confirmed a massive layoff wave that will affect over 1,000 of its employees. The company is blaming worsening engagement in Fortnite for this shift, saying it needs to make major cuts to keep afloat.

Earlier today, Epic Games CEO Tim Sweeney sent a note with information about the layoff wave and the difficulties the company is facing. It has now also been shared with the public on the Epic Games blog.

"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," said Sweeney.

Sweeney also said that the layoffs aren't related to AI, saying that the company wants as many "awesome developers" as it can while leveraging AI technologies.

"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," adds Sweeney.

The last time the company had let go of such a massive number of people was back in 2023. That wave saw over 800 people being let go, which accounted for 16% of its employees. It's unclear how much of an impact the latest shift has made on the company.

Aside from the layoffs, the company is planning to save over $500 million by reducing contracting, marketing, and closing open roles.

Today's major news comes only weeks after Epic Games announced its newest price hikes for Fortnite. The change saw in-game currency prices, dubbed V-Bucks, shifting upward, while Battle Pass rewards were also reduced. The company said that the measures were to help pay the bills as the cost of running Fortnite keeps going up.