{"id":482162,"date":"2026-06-17T16:25:14","date_gmt":"2026-06-17T16:25:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/482162\/"},"modified":"2026-06-17T16:25:14","modified_gmt":"2026-06-17T16:25:14","slug":"disney-unlocking-the-simpsons-for-fortnite-games-developers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/482162\/","title":{"rendered":"Disney Unlocking ‘The Simpsons’ for Fortnite Games Developers"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\tD\u2019oh! Homer, Marge, Bart and the rest of \u201cThe Simpsons<\/a>\u201d cast of characters are set to run riot in a slew of new battles across Epic Games\u2019 Fortnite<\/a> under a new pact.<\/p>\n

\n\tDisney<\/a> and Epic Games announced that \u201cThe Simpsons\u201d is joining Fortnite\u2019s IP Partner Program, giving third-party developers the tools to create \u201cfully authentic\u201d games using the animated franchise\u2019s characters and settings for the first time.<\/p>\n

\n\tThe companies announced the new partnership for \u201cThe Simpsons\u201d Wednesday at Epic\u2019s Unreal Fest Chicago 2026 developers conference. The Simpsons game-development tools for Fortnite will be available later this year; the companies declined to share details on revenue-sharing programs for participating developers. <\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cI can\u2019t wait to see what the Fortnite superfans and \u2018The Simpsons\u2019 superfans come up with!\u201d said Matt Selman, executive producer and showrunner of \u201cThe Simpsons.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tIt\u2019s the latest initiative to come out of Disney\u2019s $1.5 billion investment\u00a0<\/a>in Epic, announced in February 2024. And \u201cThe Simpsons\u201d have dropped into the Fortnite universe before: Disney and Epic in November 2025 launched a month-long battle royale season with \u201cThe Simpsons\u201d<\/a>\u00a0featuring the 80-player Springfield Island in the online game. According to Disney, the Simpsons battle royale season reached 80 million unique players with a cumulative 750 million hours played.<\/p>\n

\n\tMeanwhile, Disney and Epic have also brought Star Wars intellectual property to Fortnite developers, with an official toolkit for them to publish their own custom Star Wars experiences. Nearly 8 million players engaged with the third-party Star Wars games in Fortnite within the first 72 hours. Within a week of launch, FOAD\u2019s \u201cDroid Tycoon\u201d became the second most-played game in Fortnite during the BB-8 Event, which ran May 9-10, 2026.<\/p>\n

\n\tSean Shoptaw, executive VP of Disney Games and Digital Entertainment, said the Mouse House partnered with Epic \u201cto build a Disney social entertainment universe, and a big part of our vision is building an environment where creators can work with our incredible IP and Epic\u2019s world class suite of developer tools to create great content.\u201d <\/p>\n

\n\tThe Star Wars developers kit \u201cwas a validating first step, now after the very successful Simpsons takeover of Fortnite, we\u2019re bringing these iconic characters to UEFN,\u201d Shoptaw continued, referring to the Unreal Editor for Fortnite creative tool. \u201cWe\u2019re excited to continue this journey with Epic and their great creator community and look forward to sharing more about this ambitious universe in the months ahead.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cTogether with Disney, we\u2019ve seen what happens when beloved franchises are put in the hands of Fortnite creators,\u201d said Adam Sussman, president of Epic Games. \u201cPlayers respond when their favorite characters and stories are handled with care. Creators will be able to use \u2018The Simpsons\u2019 toolkit, built with 20 Century Studios and Gracie Films, to make games that deeply engage fans.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tRay Gresko, senior VP and head of product and development at Disney Digital Entertainment, said: \u201c\u2018The Simpsons\u2019 has been making people laugh for over 35 years \u2014 parents grew up with it; their kids are discovering it now. That kind of staying power is rare. What we found with the Star Wars IP toolkit is that when you hand developers the assets \u2014 the characters, the worlds, the visual language \u2014 their passion for the content comes through in the surprising, creative, and engaging experiences they make. We wanted to see what that looks like with Springfield and we can\u2019t wait to see what creators do with it.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tOther collabs between Disney and Epic have included\u00a0the Star Wars-themed \u201cGalactic Battle,\u201d<\/a> billed as the game\u2019s \u201cmost expansive experience\u201d set within the Star Wars universe, and the Disneyland Game Rush virtual installation, a Fortnite Creative island<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"D\u2019oh! Homer, Marge, Bart and the rest of \u201cThe Simpsons\u201d cast of characters are set to run riot…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":482163,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[2398,67628,111,139,69,145,43284],"class_list":["post-482162","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-technology","tag-disney","tag-fortnite","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-technology","tag-the-simpsons"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/482162","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=482162"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/482162\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/482163"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=482162"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=482162"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=482162"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}