This weekend, a heart-breaking story started doing the rounds about an employee laid off from Epic as part of its big round of redundancies.
For those who missed the story, the Fortnite maker cut over 1,000 jobs after it revealed it was struggling. The company said it was a necessary step to help it stop “spending significantly more than we’re making”.
As part of that collateral damage, though, came some heartbreaking news. Programmer Mike Prinke, who was part of the layoffs, has terminal brain cancer.
His wife Jenni Griffin took to Facebook to address the news, and the impact it’s having on their family:
“My husband, Mike was recently laid off along with over a thousand others at Epic Games. What makes this different for our family is that Mike is currently fighting terminal brain cancer. Because of the layoff, we didn’t just lose income—we lost his life insurance. And because his condition is now considered a pre-existing condition, he can’t get new coverage.”
Since the message went viral on X (or Twitter) this weekend, Epic boss Tim Sweeney has since stepped in with a statement of his own, promising his company will find a way to ensure Mike and his family get the support they need.
Epic is in contact with the family and will solve the insurance for them. There is high confidentiality around medical information and it was not a factor in this layoff decision. Sorry to everyone for not recognizing this terribly painful situation and handling it in advance.— Tim Sweeney (@TimSweeneyEpic) March 29, 2026
He said:
“Epic is in contact with the family and will solve the insurance for them. There is high confidentiality around medical information and it was not a factor in this layoff decision. Sorry to everyone for not recognising this terribly painful situation and handling it in advance.”
We trust Sweeney and his team will find an adequate outcome in this instance, but it’s terribly distressing for Mike and his family that it had to come to this.
Speaking with Kotaku, Griffin said that the company and “everyone he worked with” knew about his condition, so this wasn’t a secret.
Obviously, we just want to share our best wishes with Mike and his family at this time.
As the Editor of Push Square, Sammy has over 15 years of experience analysing the world of PlayStation, from PS3 through PS5 and everything in between. He’s an expert on PS Studios and industry matters, as well as sports games and simulators. He also enjoys RPGs when he has the time to dedicate to them, and is a bit of a gacha whale.