Epic Games and Disney have added The Simpsons to Fortnite's IP Partner Program, giving outside creators official access to the show's characters and locations to build their own experiences inside Unreal Editor for Fortnite. The move was announced June 17, 2026 at Unreal Fest, with the toolkit itself slated to arrive later this year. The partnership extends a licensing model Disney already runs with Star Wars, letting independent developers build within Fortnite using studio-approved assets rather than fan-made recreations.
What's Being Added
The Simpsons becomes the latest franchise folded into Fortnite's IP Partner Program, a system that hands UEFN creators licensed character models, environments, and other assets so they can build original games set inside established worlds. Epic and Disney describe the goal as enabling "fully authentic" Simpsons-themed content, built by third-party developers rather than Epic or Disney internally. Specifics on which characters, locations, or Springfield landmarks will be included have not been detailed; that will presumably come when the toolkit ships later in 2026.
Star Wars as the Template
This isn't Disney's first pass at opening a major property to UEFN creators. Star Wars assets were added to the program previously, and that rollout came with usage restrictions — notably a ban on using the IP for political content. Disney Digital Entertainment lead Ray Gresko pointed to that experiment as the reason for expanding to The Simpsons, telling Variety that giving developers direct access to a franchise's characters, settings, and visual style tends to produce creative results the studio wouldn't have predicted on its own. Expect The Simpsons rollout to carry its own set of guardrails once the toolkit is public, though Epic and Disney have not yet published the specific terms creators will operate under.
Why Now
The timing follows a licensed Fortnite x The Simpsons crossover event last year that pulled in roughly 80 million players and briefly pushed Fortnite's population to levels the game hadn't seen in some time. That performance appears to be the business case for turning a limited-time crossover into a standing creator toolkit — rather than a one-off event, The Simpsons becomes a permanent building block inside UEFN alongside properties like Star Wars. Epic has spent the past couple of years pushing UEFN as a platform for licensed, user-built content, positioning Fortnite less as a single game and more as a hosting layer for other companies' IP. Disney's involvement across both Star Wars and now The Simpsons suggests the studio sees UEFN as a distribution channel worth returning to rather than a one-time marketing tie-in.
What Creators Can Expect
No release date beyond "later this year" has been given for when the actual Simpsons asset kit lands in UEFN. Once it does, the program will work the same way Epic's other IP partnerships do: developers build original islands and experiences using the licensed assets, subject to Epic's and Disney's approval and content guidelines, and those creations become discoverable through Fortnite's in-game hub. With official character and environment assets on the way, the opening for creators to build ambitious Simpsons-themed islands inside Fortnite is real — though Epic and Disney have yet to spell out exactly what will and won't be allowed once the toolkit ships later this year.
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