Tim Sweeney, CEO of Epic Games, has announced that more than 1,000 employees have been laid off. As a consequence, Fortnite Ballistic, Rocket Racing, and Battle Stage will go offline.
A note sent to Epic Games employees specifically cites a “downturn in Fortnite engagement that started in 2025”, meaning “we’re spending significantly more than we’re making,” and “we have to make major cuts to keep the company funded”.
Specifically, Sweeney’s note explains that the Epic Games layoff, in tandem with $500 million of “identified cost savings in contracting, marketing, and closing open roles”, puts the company in a “more stable place”.
The Epic Games CEO specifically mentions Fortnite‘s supposed drop in popularity, explaining that while it’s among “one of the most successful games in the world,” the company has “had challenges delivering consistent Fortnite magic with every season.”
Additionally, the official Fortnite Status X account confirmed that Fortnite Ballistic and Fortnite Battle Stage would be permanently taken offline in the 40.20 update on April 16, 2026. Rocket Racing will also be purged from the game’s servers in October 2026.
Earlier this month, it was announced that Fortnite V-Bucks would be priced higher. The exact amount per pack increased from $0.50 for 50 V-Bucks to $0.99, and $8.99 now nets players just 800 V-Bucks instead of 1,000, with other bundle prices scaling accordingly.
Also in March, the previously premium experience Fortnite Save the World finally went free-to-play after years of floundering among players.
A disappointing end for a promising game mode
Fortnite Ballistic never got its true chance to shine as a competitive shooter. Epic Games at least managed to capture the spirit of tactical competitive shooters, such as CS2 and VALORANT, within Unreal Engine 5; however, it never fully committed to what the game mode could have been.
It was an uphill battle from the start since Fortnite Ballistic launched into early access on December 11, 2024. Ranked Ballistic only pulls in around 2,000 concurrent players at any one time, and experienced sharp declines throughout 2025 and into this year.
While Ranked Ballistic peaked at 168,970 players in December 2024, by January 2025, that number had dropped significantly to just 18,011, a figure it never recovered. It’s a sad, but not unexpected, end to what could have been an engaging 5v5 first-person shooter built within Fortnite; clearly, it wasn’t worth continuing to support.
