Disney to invest $1.5 billion in Epic Games for new games and entertainment universe

The Walt Disney Company has announced that it is investing $1.5 billion in Epic Games and that the two companies will collaborate on a multiyear project to create a new “games and entertainment universe” to expand the reach of Disney’s “stories and experiences.”

According to Disney, the “new persistent universe” will offer a “world-class games experience,” interoperability with Fortnite, and a “multitude of opportunities for consumers to play, watch, shop and engage with content, characters and stories from Disney, Pixar, Marvel, Star Wars, Avatar and more.” Furthermore, it says “Players, gamers and fans will be able to create their own stories and experiences, express their fandom in a distinctly Disney way, and share content with each other in ways that they love,” and that all of this will be powered by Unreal Engine.

Going by these statements, it looks like as a part of this project, Epic Games will deeply integrate its titles with characters/stories from Disney. It’s also possible that Epic Games might develop games for Disney. Unfortunately, there’s no information about the exact plans at the moment. Currently, we also don't know how much the valuation of Epic Games would be after Disney’s investment. So, it is hard to say what would be Disney's stake in Epic Games. It is worth mentioning that Tencent has a 40% share and Sony has a 5% share in Epic Games.