Disney and Epic Games are giving gamers a taste of their ongoing partnership with a new Fortnite island.
Disney is launching “Disneyland Game Rush” tomorrow, November 6, to commemorate the 70th anniversary of Disney’s original theme park. Participants in the limited-time experience — which will run through summer 2026 alongside Disneyland’s broader 70th anniversary celebrations — are cycled through seven mini games inspired by Disney properties like Star Wars, Marvel and Indiana Jones, with each game inspired by a real-life ride at Disneyland or Disney California Adventure.
“Disneyland Game Rush” was created in-house by a team of Epic Games developers who work on Disney projects full-time, although stakeholders at Disney had a hand in building elements of the island, according to a senior producer on the project, who shared details with GamesBeat during an on-background demo of the experience on November 4. The level of detail inside the experience reflects the close relationship between Epic Games and Disney, which announced a $1.5 billion investment in the Fortnite developer last year. It includes elements that are not often licensed for other IP integrations on the platform due to challenges securing the rights, including theme music and a selection of voice lines.
When Disney and Epic Games announced their partnership in February 2024, the announcement teased a coming “expansive and open games and entertainment universe connected to Fortnite.” Thus far, this universe has not yet materialized, sparking speculation among some observers that the coming Fortnite island would represent a first step toward this planned future. A Disney representative was quick to put the kibosh on this conjecture, explicitly telling GamesBeat that the experience is simply a limited-time Fortnite island — not the anticipated games and entertainment universe.
The creator community
When Disney does take its next step toward building an entertainment universe inside Fortnite, its efforts will likely involve Fortnite’s creator community, rather than relying on in-house experiences like “Disneyland Game Rush.”
“Looking ahead, I’d love to see Disney lean even further into collaboration with creators and studios within the ecosystem,” said Michael Herriger, the CEO of Fortnite developer studio Atlas Creative, who told GamesBeat that he viewed the release of “Disneyland Game Rush” as an encouraging sign for the broader ecosystem. “That kind of creator-empowered storytelling — where Disney’s worlds meet the imagination of the community — is where the full potential of the Epic-Disney partnership could really shine.”
At this year’s Unreal Fest Orlando conference in June, Disney executive vice president of global games and digital entertainment Sean Shoptaw took the stage to discuss the latest updates regarding the Disney/Epic partnership, flagging the platform’s creators as key contributors to the entertainment universe plan.
“As we look ahead to the next chapter of our relationship with Epic, we’re inspired by the movement [Epic Games executive vice president] Saxs [Persson] just spoke about — one that puts creators at the center, as part of our shared vision to build that transformative entertainment universe,” Shoptaw said during his Unreal Fest presentation. “Bringing the creator community into this universe has been a foundational part of our plan.”
The tip of the iceberg
Although “Disneyland Game Rush” provides a window into what can be done with Disney’s intellectual property inside Fortnite, the partners will need to do more to justify Disney’s $1.5 billion investment, according to gaming industry consultant and advisor Chris Heatherly, who served for 14 years as an executive in Disney’s toy and games divisions.
“The launch of a real digital Disneyland is a standalone massive event. It should be the family equivalent of ‘GTA VI.’ It should be as big as opening Shanghai [Disneyland],” Heatherly said in an interview with GamesBeat. “It’s cool to use the anniversary to draw the parallel from the physical to the digital, but the latter better be worthy of the comparison, and not just there to service the former.”
Although using Fortnite to promote individual Disney events and releases is a smart move, per Heatherly, the real promise of the Disney/Epic partnership is a full-scale digital theme park, “Imagineered” on the same level as all of Disney’s physical parks. “Disneyland Game Rush,” with its park-inspired mini games, is a step in the right direction, but it remains a limited-time event rather than a persistent, always-on virtual space.
“If Walt Disney were alive and he got to direct the Epic team — what would it be?” Heatherly said. “This should be a real Disney theme park that just happens to be online, and it needs to feel authentic and special at that level.”