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A pirate’s face melts from flesh to skull as he clutches a fistful of cursed gold. A few hundred yards away, the cockpit window of Han Solo’s Millennium Falcon fills the dunes of Tatooine, then the towers of Coruscant.
Both are running on the same software that “Fortnite,” the hugely popular online video game, runs on.
Epic Games’ Unreal Engine has spent several years migrating deeper into Walt Disney Co. — from the LED soundstages where “The Mandalorian” was shot, to previsualization suites where Imagineers sketch out rides, and now into the ride vehicles themselves and a related online game within “Fortnite.”
“This is a big moment for us,” Sean Shoptaw, executive vice president of Disney Games and Digital Entertainment, told reporters at a recent media event. “We’ve spent many, many years talking about … taking an incredible experience in our park and starting to build connectivity to that inside of a really immersive game world.”
The connection between the Millennium Falcon: Smugglers Run ride and the “Smugglers Gambit” virtual game is the latest example of the growing relationship between Disney and Epic Games. In the last few years, Disney increasingly has leveraged the firm’s technology across its divisions, from theme park attractions to film and television production.
The goal is to engross fans in the world of their favorite stories, a bet Disney hopes will keep audiences engaged when there is more competition than ever for their attention.
Two years ago, Walt Disney Co. made a big bet on Epic Games. Despite the “Fortnite” developer’s layoffs last week, that investment is still as important as ever.
“Disney does have incredible [intellectual property] that can be utilized or leveraged in different ways,” said Jessica Reif Ehrlich, senior media and entertainment analyst at Bank of America. “The goal here has always been to create these immersive universes, to really bring consumers in and engage with Disney characters.”
The connection between Burbank-based Disney and Epic Games has only deepened since 2024, when the Mouse House invested $1.5 billion in the Cary, N.C., game developer for an undisclosed minority stake.
The deal revolved around the creation of a Disney games and entertainment universe interoperating with “Fortnite,” which is still in progress despite layoffs at Epic Games this year. (Epic has its Los Angeles lab in El Segundo at NantStudios’ virtual production facility, which was founded by Times owner Dr. Patrick Soon-Shiong.)
At the time, then-Chief Executive Bob Iger billed the partnership as an opportunity to “not only meet more consumers where they are, but to allow more audiences to cultivate a bond with Disney’s iconic brands and franchises.”
The plan hasn’t seemed to change under current CEO Josh D’Amaro, who managed the Epic Games partnership in his previous role as parks chief and has emphasized the importance of technology in his new position.
He has described Disney+ as the company’s “digital centerpiece,” but recently called the Epic Games collaboration a “spoke” of that hub that gives Disney an “interactive, gaming-native environment to reach audiences that we don’t currently own, particularly younger audiences.”
