Epic Games Is Developing a Disney Extraction Shooter, and the Genre Has Never Been More Crowded

Epic Games is developing an extraction shooter featuring Disney characters, with a planned November release date, Bloomberg reported this week. The title will be the first game to emerge from Disney's $1.5 billion investment in Epic, the studio behind Fortnite and Unreal Engine.

According to Bloomberg's sources, the game draws stylistic comparisons to Arc Raiders, the extraction shooter from Embark Studios that exceeded commercial expectations earlier this year. Both formats share the same structure: squads drop into a map, collect loot, and attempt to extract before opposing player groups eliminate them. What remains unconfirmed is the depth of Disney's IP involvement. Epic has integrated Star Wars, Marvel, Toy Story, and dozens of other Disney-owned properties into Fortnite over eight years — Perry and Dr. Doofenshmirtz from Phineas and Ferb among the most recent additions. Whether the extraction shooter pulls from that catalog or introduces characters built specifically for the game has not been disclosed.

Sources speaking to Bloomberg called the project "not very original," while adding that employees remain "optimistic that Epic will get it right by the launch date." Originality wasn't Fortnite's defining quality at launch either. Epic released the game's battle royale mode as a direct response to Krafton's PUBG Battlegrounds after PUBG established the genre. Critics called it a copy at the time. Epic refined and scaled the format until it became one of the most-played games globally.

Epic's collaboration with Disney runs alongside a documented shift in Disney's content strategy. The entertainment company has directed creators toward products aimed at Gen Z men, a demographic Disney has identified as underserved by its current output. Star Wars and Marvel, which once drove consistent theatrical results, have not reliably hit those highs in recent years. Games offer Disney a direct channel to that audience, and a co-developed extraction shooter lands in the exact demographic range the company is targeting.

I think the strategic logic is sound, but a coherent strategy doesn't produce a successful game in one of 2026's most contested formats. The November release will land alongside Bungie's Marathon, Krafton's PUBG: Black Budget, and Deep Worlds' Beautiful Light — all extraction or PvPvE titles competing for the same player hours. Arc Raiders proved the genre can still produce a breakout hit. It also demonstrated those hits are exceptions. Several studios with the resources to build in this space have deliberately chosen not to.

Epic's collaboration with Disney is structured to extend past this one title. Bloomberg reports the agreement includes at least two additional games. In 2024, the two companies announced plans to develop what they described as an "all-new games and entertainment universe" designed to extend Disney's stories and experiences into interactive form, without specifying what that would look like in practice.

I see the November window as a complicated one for Epic, given what the company has been managing internally. In March, Epic announced layoffs affecting more than 1,000 employees, attributing the cuts to soaring Fortnite development costs and a measurable decline in player engagement. The same month, Epic granted content creators building custom Fortnite experiences access to a Star Wars asset library — deepening the Disney relationship inside Fortnite's ecosystem before the extraction shooter even ships. The new game will arrive into a market that has already processed all of those competing titles and formed its opinions on the genre's current ceiling.

A former Valve writer publicly challenged Epic's leadership after the March workforce reduction.