Epic Reportedly Pushing Devs to Use AI, Delays Secret Star Wars and Marvel Crossover Shooter
Epic Games has reportedly delayed its secret Star Wars and Marvel crossover shooter as it pushes its developers to shift to an "AI first" production model.
Details on the yet-to-be-announced Disney video game were shared by Bloomberg today. The site's report stated the untitled crossover experience was slated for release in March, but has since been pushed back to accommodate a new internal release plan that has yet to be shared.
Epic developers attached to the project have reportedly been encouraged to use tools such as Anthropic's AI assistant, Claude, with humans expected to oversee that work. Bloomberg also obtained an internal message shared by one of the Star Wars/Marvel game's directors.
"No more hand-written code,” an excerpt from the message said. The same message is then said to have added that all art for the project would be "generated with full AI workflows."
The report continued, stating that Epic underestimated the time and resources necessary to develop the Star Wars and Marvel shooter. Progress has been slower than expected, leading to the delay. When and where it will launch is unclear.
"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 in a statement.
The site added that Epic's push for what appears to be a project that leans heavily on AI left many of its developers "stunned." News of the Star Wars and Marvel shooter's schedule change follows another Bloomberg report from earlier this year, which stated that Epic was working on an extraction shooter featuring Disney characters. It was said to be similar to Embark Studios' Arc Raiders at the time.
Just moments before news of Epic's AI push broke, studio founder and CEO Tim Sweeney published a post on X/Twitter saying that the studio has a "huge pivot underway." He added that they are "moving developers around to retool for maximum AI acceleration."
"The aim isn't to do the same stuff with fewer people," he continued, "but to enable everyone here to build MORE and BETTER stuff, and to bring the benefits to all teams using Unreal." In a follow-up post, Sweeney said, "Our more modest aim is to survive the AI revolution, help other developers do the same, and come out on the other end making better code and content faster."
"The biggest change will be much faster time from having an idea to playtesting it," he said in another post. "This will be great for gameplay, as most of the recent AAA failures can be attributed to game systems going through far too much of their development process without being able to playtest."
Disney purchased a $1.5 billion stake in the Fortnite developer in 2024 in a move that cemented their relationship at the time. Outside of more crossovers within Epic's still-popular battle royale-centered video game, it seems we've yet to see the extent of their collaborations. Meanwhile, Disney recently refuted claims that it was interested in outright acquiring the game studio.