What moved (Sep '25 – Aug '26)
| Metric | Sep 2025 → Aug 2026 | Change |
|---|---|---|
| Awareness | 69% → 73% | +4pp |
| Investigation | 27% → 30% | +3pp |
| Preference | 4% → 6% | +2pp |
What's behind the growth
Fortnite's brand-building rests on two things now: a constant stream of pop culture collaborations, and a creator economy that's becoming central to how the game runs.
Its current season, Chapter 7 Season 4 "Override" (launched August 2026), lets players equip gear from classic characters like Sonic, Mega Man and Crash Bandicoot to unlock their signature powers in battle, a guest-character crossover built around retro gaming nostalgia.
It follows a year of similar tie-ins, from Star Wars and Formula 1 to Power Rangers, Halo and a Doja Cat-fronted Fortnitemares event.
But the bigger shift has been underneath the game itself. Since December 2025, Epic has let creators sell their own in-game items and keep roughly 74% of the price, well above what rival platforms pay out.
Creator-built islands have grown fast as a result, now accounting for 47% of all Fortnite playtime as of May 2026, up from 38% a year earlier. Epic has paid creators more than $1 billion since opening up its Unreal Editor for Fortnite tool in 2023, and three in every four transactions in the game now come from these creator-made experiences rather than battle royale itself.
