The creator of the Fortnite online video game announced Tuesday it is laying off 1,000 employees, citing a decrease in the amount of time people are playing the game.
Epic Games made the announcement in a note to employees.
“I’m sorry we’re here again,” Tim Sweeney, the company’s chief executive, wrote in the note. “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.”
Information on today's layoffshttps://t.co/ota1m1FCnK
— Epic Games Newsroom (@EpicNewsroom) March 24, 2026
The cut represents about 20% of the work force at the Cary, North Carolina-based company, a Epic Games spokesperson told The New York Times.
It is the second major round of layoffs at Epic Games, USA Today reported. The company laid off 830 employees, or approximately 16% of its workforce, in September 2023, according to the Times. At the time, Epic Games cited reasons similar to Tuesday’s explanation.
Epic Games has been involved in legal tussles with Apple and Google over fees required for in-app purchases, USA Today reported.
Fortnite was not available on those app stores while litigation was pending, according to the newspaper.
Sweeney wrote that “this isn’t our first time being here.”
“Epic survived upheavals in (the) 1990s 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,” he wrote. “Each time, we rebuilt our foundations and earned a renewed leadership position.”
Fortnite, a popular multiplayer shooting game, was released in 2017, the Times reported. Epic Games said it has 4,000 employees after Tuesday’s layoffs, according to The Associated Press.
In the coming days, employers will see a stream of resumes of once-in-a-lifetime quality folks. An important thing to understand is that Epic never lowered our hiring standards as we grew, and the layoff wasn't a performance-based "rightsizing" as companies call it nowadays. It's… https://t.co/3SvyWNC04k
— Tim Sweeney (@TimSweeneyEpic) March 25, 2026
“Despite Fortnite remaining one of the most successful games in the world, we’ve had challenges delivering consistent Fortnite magic with every season,” Sweeney wrote. “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.”
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