Fortnite popularity slips so much Epic Games lays off 1,000 staff

Right after bumping up the price of Fortnite V-Bucks to ‘keep the lights on,’ Epic Games admits its letting go of even more of its staff.

It’s very obvious that the games industry is not in a healthy state, but nothing makes that more apparent than hearing that even Fortnite is struggling.

Things looked bleak in 2023 when developer Epic Games let go of 870 employees from its estimated 4,000+ workforce while also raising the price of the V-Bucks in-game currency.

Epic seemed to pull things back that same year thanks to the nostalgia focused Season OG (which shattered player count records), but now history is repeating itself as shortly after raising V-Bucks prices again, Epic Games has announced further layoffs.

This instance is even worse as 1,000 employees are being affected this time. Company CEO Tim Sweeney tacitly admits that Fortnite engagement is down in a new blog post as well as that Epic has been spending more money than it was making, which was the same excuse he gave in 2023.

‘Despite Fortnite remaining one of the most successful games in the world, we’ve had challenges delivering consistent Fortnite magic with every season,’ says Sweeney, adding how the game has only recently returned to mobile platforms following Epic’s legal disputes with Apple and Google.

He also refers to Epic as the ‘industry’s vanguard,’ whatever that’s supposed to mean: ‘We’re only in the early stages of returning to mobile and optimising 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.’

One thing not mentioned in the post is that this is also triggering the shut down of several Fortnite gameplay modes. In a separate X post, Epic admits it ‘failed to build something awesome enough to attract and retain a large player base.’

Both the Ballistic tactical shooter mode (which only launched in early access in late 2024) and the competitive Battle Stage mode for rhythm game Fortnite Festival will shutter in April, with racing mode Rocket Racing shutting down in October.

As for what comes next for Fortnite, all Sweeney says is they need to ‘build awesome Fortnite experiences with fresh seasonal content, gameplay, story, and live events’… which doesn’t sound that different to what it was doing already.

Perhaps Epic can afford to slow down on the constant stream of crossover skins and spending no doubt millions on licensing famous franchises and celebrities for the game. The newest season, for instance, is built all around The Foundation, one of Fortnite’s original characters who’s portrayed by Dwayne ‘The Rock’ Johnson.

Another nostalgia focused season could help bring some players back but it’s hard to imagine a second crack at it being anywhere near as successful as the first time.

We’d like to think Fortnite’s struggles will discourage other publishers from chasing the live service games trend, but this moment of weakness may only encourage them to try and push their own Fortnite replacements.

Fortnite’s not the only thing struggling. Earlier today, it was reported that Nintendo has opted to cut back production on its Switch 2 console, which had a fantastic launch but saw a sharp downturn in sales over Christmas.

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