GoKawiilis a senior reporter covering technology, gaming, and more. He joined The Verge in 2019 after nearly two years at Techmeme.
Epic Games and Disney are making a big announcement as part of their continually deepening relationship. In June, Epic announced that Fortnite creators would “soon” be able to make custom Star Wars-themed games and experiences, and starting Thursday that feature is finally launching. While creators can start making experiences now, they’ll be able to publish them for players to jump into beginning May 1st.
Since announcing the Unreal Editor for Fortnite (UEFN), the tool that lets creators build experiences that sit alongside Epic’s own modes like battle royale and Fortnite Festival, Epic started introducing a handful of big-name franchises and brands, including Lego, Squid Game, and KPop Demon Hunters. But “since day one, every creator was like, ‘When are we getting Star Wars?’” Andre Balta, Epic’s senior director of ecosystem growth, tells The Verge.
Image: Epic Games
Epic has a long history with Star Wars; Fortnite’s battle royale mode has featured Star Wars crossovers for seven years running, including an exclusive clip from Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker and an entire Star Wars-focused season. Disney has been an “amazing” partner on making Star Wars assets available for UEFN creators, Balta says, explaining that “From day one they had this deep ethos of just trying to give creators as much as possible.” But it’s worth noting that brands set certain rules creators must follow, and if they want to make a Star Wars-themed island, creators have to agree to give Disney 20 percent of their payout share.
With Epic’s tools, creators will be able to make experiences with characters such as Luke Skywalker and Darth Vader, vehicles like X-wings and TIE fighters, weapons including lightsabers and blasters, and even rideable Tauntauns.
In 2024, Disney announced that it would be investing $1.5 billion in Epic and partnering with the company to build a “persistent universe” tied to Fortnite. Nearly two years on, that’s still “deep in development,” Balta says, and this week, new Disney CEO Josh D’Amaro briefly mentioned the universe as part of comments during a shareholder meeting. While we still don’t know what this universe might look like, Balta says Star Wars isn’t the last franchise that Disney and Epic want to put “in the hands of creators.”
As always, it’s a busy time for Fortnite. Epic is also launching the game’s latest battle royale season, called Showdown, which features Looney Tunes’ Bugs Bunny and the return of Dwayne Johnson’s Fortnite character, and the game is also now available again globally on Android. Ahead of the new season and platform, Epic raised the price of its in-game currency V-Bucks, explaining that “the price hike is a direct correlation to the operating costs.”