Epic Games shifts to AI first model for upcoming Disney shooter

Epic Games is pivoting to an artificial intelligence first development model for its upcoming shooter project with The Walt Disney Company. According to Bloomberg, as well as matching coverage from Quartz, the studio has delayed the project while asking developers to rely on generated workflows. Ars Technica and TechPowerUp both report that human developers will guide and manage assets created by artificial intelligence tools. [1][2][5][6]

Internal employee messages viewed by Bloomberg show that human workers will oversee code and artwork produced by models including Anthropic's Claude. Ars Technica reported that the internal directive means developers will produce no more hand-written code for the upcoming Marvel and Star Wars video game. Additionally, TechPowerUp and Quartz report that all future art assets for the delayed title must be created using full artificial intelligence workflows. [1][2][5][6]

The Cary, North Carolina based company was founded by Tim Sweeney in 1991 as Potomac Computer Systems before changing its name to Epic Games in 1999. The firm built landmark success with its game Fortnite, which generated an estimated 26 billion dollars in revenue, and its Unreal Engine software platform. [7][8]