Epic Games has reportedly delayed its unannounced Disney shooter, the game that would put Marvel and Star Wars characters side by side, and is moving the project to what staff were told is an “AI-first” way of making games. Bloomberg broke the story Monday, and Polygon, Ars Technica and VGC have followed with details from Bloomberg’s report. The shooter had been slated for March 2027. It now has no release date.
According to Bloomberg, one of the game’s directors told staff in an internal message that there would be “no more hand-written code,” and that all art for the game would be “generated with full AI workflows.” Developers will instead manage and guide work produced by AI models such as Anthropic’s Claude, Ars Technica writes, citing internal messages Bloomberg viewed.
A slow, understaffed project
The report says development has been slower than Epic expected, in part because the company underestimated how many developers and how much time the game would need. The change was announced to developers on a video call last week, VGC reports, citing Bloomberg, and it “left some Epic developers stunned.” Some joked about whether they should ask Claude to fix its own mistakes.
Epic didn’t deny the shift. “We’re embracing AI-accelerated development, led by Epic developers who are the visionaries and creative drivers for everything we do,” Epic communications director Jake Jones told Bloomberg, according to Polygon. Disney has not commented publicly.
Sweeney: “a huge pivot underway”
Shortly before Bloomberg’s story went up, Epic CEO Tim Sweeney posted on X: “We have a huge pivot underway here at Epic, moving developers around to retool for maximum AI acceleration. The aim isn’t to do the same stuff with fewer people, but to enable everyone here to build MORE and BETTER stuff, and to bring the benefits to all teams using Unreal.”
When one user replied that he wasn’t reading the room, Sweeney answered, “Much of the room wants it to be 2016 again, but it’s not,” Polygon reports. Another user asked how the plan squares with Epic laying off more than 1,000 people in March, cuts Sweeney blamed on a “downturn in Fortnite engagement.” Polygon notes he did not respond to that one.
Why it matters
The game is the flagship of Disney’s partnership with Epic, which began with a $1.5 billion investment in the Fortnite maker announced in early 2024. The two companies have already tried AI together, and it went badly at first: an AI-voiced Darth Vader added to Fortnite started repeating curse words before Epic patched it.
Sweeney has been one of the industry’s loudest AI boosters. He has called Steam’s AI disclosure tags pointless because AI tools will be involved in nearly all future production, and he has warned about the state of the business, as RCG reported when Sweeney called this the worst crash since the 1980s. VGC calls Epic one of the first major companies to confirm it is trying to build a triple-A game primarily with AI.
Epic still hasn’t announced the game’s title, platforms or a new launch window.
