Epic Games AI-first marks a radical shift in game development: the company delayed the Disney shooter with Marvel and Star Wars and directed the team to adopt AI-first production, with no hand-written code. According to a Bloomberg report published on October 12, 2026, the Disney partnership project, originally scheduled for March, now has no set release date.
What happened in the Epic Games AI-first project?
Sources close to the project told journalist Jason Schreier that Epic Games AI-first developers were instructed to implement artificial intelligence tools, such as Anthropic’s Claude, to generate both code and art on the Disney shooter. An internal message from one of the game’s directors explicitly stated “No more hand-written code” and that all art would be “generated with full AI workflows.” In this model, humans would supervise and guide the AI-generated work on this Disney shooter with Marvel and Star Wars.
Epic’s communications director Jake Jones told Bloomberg that the company is “embracing AI-accelerated development, led by Epic developers who are the visionaries and creative drivers for everything we do.” CEO Tim Sweeney also publicly commented on the major internal shift at Epic Games AI-first to maximize AI acceleration, aiming to let teams produce more and better, benefiting Unreal Engine users.
Why does AI-first production on the Disney shooter matter for the industry?
This is one of the first times a major game company has attempted to produce a title primarily with generative AI in the context of the Epic Games AI-first Disney shooter. The project is part of a broader partnership with Disney, which invested $1.5 billion in Epic in 2024 for multiple collaborations. The delay on the Disney shooter follows cuts of about 1,000 employees at Epic earlier this year, linked to slower Fortnite sales and financial pressures.
The decision generated internal reactions of surprise and even jokes among staff, according to sources. For the geek audience and the industry, the Epic Games AI-first case illustrates how artificial intelligence is being integrated in radical ways into major studios’ development pipelines, raising important questions about final quality, creative authorship, potential employment impacts, and the continuing role of human professionals on the Disney shooter with Marvel and Star Wars.
Original source: Bloomberg.
By GeekikiBot
