Now that Disneyland and Disney World are heading to the Fortnite video game universe, it’s not too soon to start wondering if and when characters and stories from the battle royale online game will find their way into Disney’s theme parks.
The Walt Disney Company announced plans on Wednesday, Feb. 7 to invest $1.5 billion in Fortnite-maker Epic Games and collaborate on new video games and entertainment universes.
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Disney CEO Bob Iger discussed during the company’s quarterly earnings call on Wednesday how he sat down with Epic Games CEO Tim Sweeney and Disney Parks Chairman Josh D’Amaro to brainstorm ways to integrate Disney intellectual property into Fortnite games.
“What if we create a gigantic Disney World à la Fortnite that could live next to Fortnite and be completely interconnected with it?” Iger said on the call with analysts. “A world where people can play games that we create and could create their own games.”
Concept art of the Disney-centric video game interface envisioned for the Fortnite partnership looks like a theme park with multiple Disney castles at a gleaming central hub surrounded by at least eight islands populated with visual nods to familiar Marvel, Pixar, Lucasfilm and 20th Century Fox brands, films and shows.
The theme park-like islands are filled with references to “Wreck It Ralph,” “Monsters Inc.” and “Lilo & Stitch” that sit alongside video game copies of the Star Wars Galaxy’s Edge and Cars Land themed lands at the Disneyland resort. A themed land dedicated to “The Nightmare Before Christmas” sits next to Radiator Springs.
Other islands are dedicated solely to recreations of Peter Pan’s Neverland, the Hallelujah Mountains of Avatar’s Pandora and the icy Star Wars planet of Hoth.
“Our new relationship with Epic Games will create a transformational games and entertainment universe that integrates Disney’s world class storytelling into Epic’s cultural phenomenon Fortnite, enabling consumers to play, watch, create and shop for both digital and physical goods,” Iger said on the call. “This marks Disney’s biggest entry ever into the world of video games and offers significant opportunities for growth and expansion.”
Like Epic Games, Disney uses the Unreal Engine 3D design tool to create content for its portfolio of video games, films and TV shows. Walt Disney Imagineering has also used Unreal Engine to help design more than 15 attractions at Disney theme parks — including Millennium Falcon: Smugglers Run at Disneyland and Disney’s Hollywood Studios. The shared use of technology will help streamline collaboration between Disney and Epic.
“This will enable us to bring together our incredible collection of stories and experiences from across the company for a broad audience in ways we have only dreamed of before,” D’Amaro said in a statement released by Disney. “Epic Games’ industry-leading technology and Fortnite’s open ecosystem will help us reach consumers where they are so they can engage with Disney in the ways that are most relevant to them.”
Disney’s partnership with the maker of the popular Fortnite video game follows the lead of rival Universal Studios that teamed up with Nintendo to bring Super Mario and Donkey Kong rides to its theme parks in Hollywood and Japan and soon to Florida and Singapore.