This figure was announced by Epic Games during the State of Unreal 2026 presentation.
The company clarified that this amount was paid over a little more than three years. The ability for users to create their own islands in Fortnite was introduced in March 2023 with the launch of a special Unreal Editor for Fortnite.
Epic Games did not disclose how many people shared the billion-dollar payout. It is known that as of September 2025, there were over 260,000 user-created islands in Fortnite — at that time, their creators had received $722 million, meaning the company paid out an additional approximately $300 million over the past nine months.
Epic Games also reported that in 2026, they made several improvements to the editor and accelerated the island development process. Specifically, iteration time was reduced by an average of 40%. Additionally, it became easier for gamers to discover fresh content. As a result, new islands reached the milestone of 100 users and 10,000 views twice as fast as before.