Today, Epic announced that it's laying off more than 1,000 employees. Alongside that news, the studio also revealed that it's ceasing support for three Fortnite game modes in 2026: Rocket Racing, Ballistic, and Festival Battle Stage. Rocket Racing is particularly notable, since it was one of the key pillars of Epic's original push into a multi-game metaverse.
"We've built a lot of Fortnite modes, and in some cases we failed to build something awesome enough to attract and retain a large player base," the company says in its announcement, adding that it's "grateful for everyone who played."
Rocket Racing will go offline in October 2026. This mode, created by the Epic-owned Rocket League studio Psyonix, is an arcade racing game that blends Rocket League's high-flying cars with a competitive Mario Kart sensibility. It seemed like the obvious highlight when Epic first unveiled Fortnite's multi-game future back in 2023, but that wasn't reflected in the player counts, which quickly dwindled in comparison to other modes and user-created options.
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One of the other key pillars of that 2023 launch was Fortnite Festival. While Epic says "music remains a major part of Fortnite" and the mode as a whole will continue to get updates, the PvP Festival Battle Stage is going offline as of April 16, 2026.
And there's another mode dying on April 16: Ballistic. This is a 5v5 FPS that transplants Counter-Strike's ultra-competitive vibes into the Fortnite ecosystem, and this shutdown seems to be the one the community is taking the hardest. You can just look at the comments under Epic's announcement to see the community's outcry – many believed Ballistic could have had a robust future with more support from the devs.
But with 1,000 fewer people at Epic, it's unclear what the future of modes outside of the core Fortnite ecosystem will ultimately be. Epic Games' CEO Tim Sweeney blamed a "downturn in Fortnite engagement" for the layoffs, although he stopped short of detailing steps the company is taking to realign the battle royale.
Speaking more broadly, Sweeney had this to say about the future of Fortnite: "What we now need to do is clear: build awesome Fortnite experiences with fresh seasonal content, gameplay, story, and live events."
Epic Games defends Fortnite's controversial V-Bucks price hike, insisting it's in "direct correlation to the operating costs" and teasing "amazing things" are coming that'll make you "understand what's been going on."
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