Epic Games delays Disney shooter and orders AI-first development

A shooter with Disney pushed back

Epic Games has delayed a shooter it is developing with Disney, according to a Bloomberg report published on 12 October that cites people familiar with the project. The game features characters from Marvel and Star Wars and had been slated for release in March 2027. Ars Technica, summarizing the Bloomberg report, says the project has now been delayed indefinitely, amid an AI-related shakeup and development that was understaffed and slower than expected. Disney took a $1.5 billion stake in Epic in 2024 to build a games and entertainment universe connected to Fortnite.

According to Bloomberg, one of the game's directors told the team in an internal message that the project would adopt an "AI first" approach, with "no more hand-written code" and all art "generated with full AI workflows". Models such as Anthropic's Claude would produce the code and art, while human developers managed and guided the output. Some employees were stunned by the message and joked about it, hoping it was not serious, according to the report.

Sweeney's post on X

Epic CEO Tim Sweeney wrote on X shortly after the Bloomberg report appeared that the company is "moving developers around to retool for maximum AI acceleration". In the same post, he wrote:

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.

Epic's Communications Director Jake Jones made the company's position clear in a statement to Bloomberg:

We're embracing AI-accelerated development, led by Epic developers who are the visionaries and creative drivers for everything we do.

Epic had not immediately responded to a request for comment from AFP when the news broke.

Layoffs and the debate over AI

The announcement lands in a heated debate about the place of AI in artistic and creative industries. Epic laid off more than 1,000 employees in March, about a fifth of its staff, with Sweeney citing a downturn in Fortnite engagement as the main reason. At the time Sweeney said those job cuts were not linked to AI. When an internet user challenged him over the hostility this choice has provoked, Sweeney replied that Epic's role as a tool provider for much of the industry is to design for the present as it is and for the future as it will soon be. He said he personally favours the approach and believes it gives creators more means. In November 2025 he also said that AI usage disclosure tags on Valve's Steam platform "make no sense", because AI tools "will be involved in nearly all future production".

Industry surveys on generative AI

A September survey by the Japanese association of video game publishers (CESA) found that about 86% of Japanese developers use generative AI in their work. A Game Developers Conference (GDC) survey of more than 2,300 professionals puts that share at 36% in North America. The same GDC survey found that 52% of respondents say generative AI is bad for the industry, up from 30% in 2025. Most of those who use the tools do so for research and programming rather than asset creation.