UEFN Fortnite Creative Game-Focused Studio Barnyard Games Shuts Down
Barnyard Games, a studio built around developing experiences within Fortnite Creative through Unreal Engine for Fortnite (UEFN), has officially shut down. The news was confirmed by co-founder and CEO John Blakely in a LinkedIn post.
The studio was founded in December 2023 by industry veterans including Matthew Armstrong, the creator of Borderlands, alongside John Blakely, Mark Cieslar, and Christopher Sturr. At its launch, Barnyard Games emphasized the potential of UEFN as a platform for creative, player-driven virtual worlds. In a statement at the time, Blakely described UEFN as “an array of untapped and exciting possibilities; a relatively unexplored landscape that allows us to experiment while also giving players a central role in shaping their virtual worlds.”
Despite early excitement, which included securing $3.4 million in seed funding and launching titles like Mega Fun Golf Zone, Barnyard Games was unable to maintain operations. In his announcement, Blakely expressed gratitude to the team, investors, and supporters:
“It is with a heavy heart I am sharing that the barn doors have closed on Barnyard Games. To our investors, founders, and team, thank you for believing in us, for pouring your energy into the work, and for walking this journey with me. Building alongside you has been the privilege of my career, and even in closing, I feel nothing but gratitude, respect, and pride in what we created together.”
The closure was attributed to difficulties in securing additional funding, with Blakely noting that the broader industry is facing a particularly challenging moment for investment.
Barnyard’s shutdown highlights a growing concern within the industry. Epic Games has been pushing Fortnite Creative and UEFN as a competitor to Roblox’s user-generated content ecosystem, but the fact that an experienced team of veterans couldn’t sustain a studio on this model raises doubts about its viability for other developers. With much of today’s gaming audience concentrated heavily on Fortnite and a handful of other titles, opportunities for external studios to break into this ecosystem appear increasingly limited.
Do you think Fortnite’s UEFN ecosystem has real long-term potential for studios, or is it destined to remain dominated by individual creators and Epic itself?
