Epic Games, creator of Fortnite, is laying off workers in San Diego and across California

Epic Games, the maker of Fortnite, a popular online game, has laid off 28 workers in San Diego as part of a broader cutback of more than 1,000 jobs in the U.S. that was announced in March.

The company cut about half of its San Diego workforce, according to a Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification the company filed with the state on April 23.

“Today we're laying off over 1,000 Epic employees,” Tim Sweeney, the company’s CEO and co-founder, told workers in a memo in late March. “I’m sorry we’re here again. The downturn in Fortnite engagement that started in 2025 means we’re spending significantly more than we’re making, and we have to make major cuts to keep the company funded.”

Sweeney said the cuts are not driven by AI, but rather by a mix of industrywide and company-specific challenges.

Across the industry, he noted “slower growth, weaker spending, and tougher cost economics; current consoles selling less than last generation’s; and games competing for time against other increasingly engaging forms of entertainment.”

Epic Games has also struggled to deliver “consistent Fortnite magic with every season,” Sweeney wrote. He added that the company is working on optimizing the game for smartphones. It will also work to keep attracting players with “fresh seasonal content, gameplay, story, and live events” and give tools to developers through its Unreal Engine platform.

Fortnite, launched in 2017, is an online battle royale, third-person shooter style video game where players fight to the death. Playing the game is free, and the company makes money through in-game purchases and passes. It makes other games, some free and some that are bought.

Cuts from the company’s downtown San Diego office affect designers, artists, engineers and other roles, with about half of the cut jobs in senior, director, manager or lead positions. Along with these local workers, 107 remote employees, who reported to the San Diego office, were laid off in Los Angeles, El Segundo and Larkspur, in Marin County.

Before the layoffs, the San Diego office had around 50 workers, according to AI and analytics provider Unify. The company, headquartered in North Carolina, did not return a request for an interview.

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