Epic Games, the company behind Unreal Engine and Fortnite, is laying off over 1,000 staff members as Fortnite’s popularity continues to decline.
On March 24, Epic CEO Tim Sweeney confirmed the massive layoff news via a blog post on the official Epic Games website. In the message, Sweeney laid the blame on Fortnite not having as many active players as before.
“Today we’re laying off over 1000 Epic employees,” said Sweeney in a message shared with employees before being posted online. “I’m sorry we’re here again. 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. This layoff, together with over $500 million of identified cost savings in contracting, marketing, and closing some open roles puts us in a more stable place.”
Employees affected by the layoff will receive four months of base pay, with employees who have been there longer getting more severance. Epic will also extend laid-off employee healthcare coverage for six months. Sweeney says a company-wide meeting on Thursday will go into Epic’s future in more detail.
Epic CEO says AI not to blame, but cites costly legal battles
Sweeney made sure to include a direct reference to AI and claimed today’s layoffs aren’t connected to the controversial technology that he has championed and defended online in the past.
“Since it’s a thing now, I should note that the layoffs aren’t related to AI,” said the CEO. “To the extent it improves productivity, we want to have as many awesome developers developing great content and tech as we can.”
Also mentioned in the message to staff is Epic’s role in fighting tech giants like Google and Apple in court over in-app purchases and third-party app stores. While Epic has been able to carve out some victories from this now years-long crusade, it hasn’t been cheap or easy for the company, something Sweeney indirectly references, saying: “…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.”
Sweeney says the company has struggled recently to consistently deliver “Fortnite magic with every season” of the free-to-play battle royale game and that moving forward, the plan is to “build awesome Fortnite experiences with fresh seasonal content, gameplay, story, and live events.” The CEO also says the company must focus on creating and improving dev tools as it moves onto the next generation of Unreal Engine, UE6, and expands Fortnite’s UEFN features and abilities.
“This isn’t our first time being here,” said Sweeney in his message. “Epic survived upheavals in 1990’s with the move from 2D to 3D with Unreal 1; in the 2000’s building console games with Gears of War; and in 2012 moving to online gaming with Paragon and Fortnite. Each time, we rebuilt our foundations and earned a renewed leadership position.”
Earlier this month, Epic raised the prices on Fortnite’s in-game currency, V-Bucks, telling players it needed to do this to “help pay the bills.” It also apparently needed to do some bloodletting of staff, too. It is also removing lesser-played modes from Fortnite, like Rocket Racing.