Epic Games is moving to an “AI first” development strategy for its collaboration with the Walt Disney Company, letting AI models write all the code and guide all the artwork for an upcoming shooter. This is according to a report from Bloomberg, which cites anonymous people close to the project who commented on the important turning point in internal development at the maker of Unreal Engine.
Human developers will be responsible for managing and guiding code and art assets generated by models such as Anthropic’s Claude, according to internal messages from Epic employees seen by Bloomberg. This means “no more hand-written code” and art assets “generated with comprehensive AI workflows,” according to the report.
The $1.5 billion collaboration between Epic and Disney, announced in early 2024, was set to release a Marvel and Star Wars-themed shooter in March 2027. That project has now been delayed indefinitely due to AI-related upheaval and understaffed development, slower than expected so far, according to the report.
“We embrace AI-accelerated development, led by Epic developers who are the visionaries and creative drivers behind everything we do,” an Epic spokesperson said in a statement.
“We have a huge pivot underway here at Epic, pushing developers to retool for maximum AI acceleration,” Epic CEO Tim Sweeney wrote on social media shortly after the Bloomberg story was published. “The goal is not to do the same thing with fewer people, but to enable everyone here to create MORE and BETTER things, and to bring the benefits to all teams using Unreal.”
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