Epic is ending 3 Fortnite game modes following its latest round of layoffs: 'We failed to build something awesome enough to attract and retain a large player base'

Alongside the layoff of more than 1,000 employees announced earlier today, Epic is also ending a trio of Fortnite modes—Rocket Racing, Ballistic, and Festival Battle Stage—and removing the racing games Horizon Chase and Horizon Chase Turbo from sale.

The Fortnite modes are being removed because, Epic said, "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."

Ballistic, "a deeply unserious Counter-strike clone" that we predicted was going to be huge (whoops) and Fortnite Festival's musical PvP mode Battle Stage will go offline on April 16 with the launch of Fortnite 40.20.

Rocket Racing, "along with all UEFN islands built with Rocket Racing templates," will follow in October 2026. Ahead of that, Rocket Racing Quests will be removed next week, the track creation template will be removed from UEFN, and no further ranked rewards will be offered this season.

Horizon Chase Turbo is not a Fortnite mode, but rather a standalone game inspired by arcade racers of the 1980s and '90s released in 2018. And it's apparently a pretty good one: The Epic Store doesn't support user reviews but Steam does, and over there Horizon Chase Turbo boasts a "very positive" rating across more than 4,000 user reviews—not a monster hit but definitely a 'recommend' for fans of the genre. A demo for Horizon Chase Turbo is also available on Steam, so you can get a few laps in before it's gone even if you don't feel like throwing money at it.

Both the original Horizon Chase, a mobile game, and Horizon Chase Turbo will be removed from sale on June 1. Horizon Chase 2, which launched for PC as an Epic Games Store exclusive in 2023, will remain available. The likelihood of new games in the series being developed seems not great: Epic acquired developer Aquiris in 2023 and renamed it to Epic Games Brasil, saying it would "create groundbreaking content and social experiences within Fortnite."