Will we have fun tomorrow in a virtual amusement park?
Disney announced plans on Wednesday to invest $1.5 billion in Epic Games, the company behind the video game Fortnite.
The project behind this investment is to “build a persistent, open and interoperable ecosystem that will bring together the Disney and Fortnite communities,” indicates The Walt Disney Company in a press release, published Wednesday.
The precise outlines of the project are still unknown.
“In addition to being a world-class gaming and interacting experience with Fortnite, the new persistent universe will provide a multitude of opportunities for consumers to play, watch, purchase and interact with Fortnite content, characters and stories. Disney, Pixar, Marvel, Star Wars, Avatar and more,” says Disney.
“Players and fans will be able to create their own stories and experiences, express their fandom in a way distinct from Disney, and share content with each other in the way they like,” continues the giant.
“Opportunities for growth and expansion”
“This marks Disney's largest entry into the world of video games and offers significant opportunities for growth and expansion,” Disney boss Bob Iger said in this press release.
“This will allow us to bring together our incredible collection of stories and experiences from across the company for a broad audience in a way that we have only dreamed of before,” added the president of Disney Experiences.
As Numerama points out, this merger between Disney and Epic Games is not really a surprise.
For several years already, characters from the first have appeared in the game from the second.
Disney video games (“Kingdom Hearts 3”, “Star Wars Jedi: Survivor”) as well as attractions available in the parks (“Millennium Falcon: Smugglers Run”, “Star Wars: Galaxy's Edge”) use the game engine Unreal Engine video, which allows you to create video games.