Epic Games' Disney shooter is going "AI first," whether developers like it or not

[Alfonso Maruccia]

Cutting corners: Epic is now another of the big software companies that want to bring AI into everything they do. According to internal sources, the real trial by fire for this "AI first" approach will come with the shooter Epic is developing with Disney. If it ever comes out.

Epic's first game under its Disney partnership is way behind schedule, and the publisher is willing to bet everything on generative AI to get it over the finish line. But the push to use AI across the entire development workflow could eventually tear the studio apart.

The sorry state of Epic's AI push was revealed by unnamed sources in a Bloomberg report. Managers have apparently told the developers working on the Disney project to follow an "AI first" production approach. A game director told Epic staff to avoid writing new code by hand, using Anthropic's Claude or other chatbot tools instead.

Epic wants employees to use AI for generating "art" assets, too. The same director said all of the game's art would come from "full AI workflows." The massive push to use AI for game development was essentially confirmed by Epic communications director Jake Jones, who said the company is embracing "AI-accelerated" development.

Sweeney himself backed this up on X the day the report came out, describing a "huge pivot" underway at Epic to retool developers around AI. He insisted the goal isn't to do the same work with fewer people, but to let everyone build more and better stuff.

Epic staff reportedly greeted the AI push with little enthusiasm during an internal video call. Some devs joked about using AI to correct the mistakes and hallucinations made by the AI, while others asked whether management was serious about the request. Someone suggested that Epic, as a company, might eventually find the push isn't as successful as executives expect.

Epic has long been a "true believer" in the transformative power of LLMs and chatbots. Tim Sweeney, Epic Games founder and CEO, is urging the entire industry to enthusiastically embrace generative AI. Sweeney even criticized Valve's Steam for requiring developers to disclose the use of AI tools, arguing that these labels will eventually become meaningless.

Epic began its major collaboration with Disney in 2024, when the Mickey Mouse mega-corporation invested $1.5 billion in Sweeney's studio to fund multiple gaming projects. The aforementioned shooter would be the first project to come out of the partnership, featuring characters from the Marvel and Star Wars franchises.

Earlier reports suggested the Disney shooter was in rough shape even before the new AI push. The game is late, the sources said, because Epic underestimated the manpower and development time required to make it.

In that light, Epic's attempt to speed up development with LLMs looks like a desperate bid to tackle the many issues the company faces right now. In March 2026, Epic laid off more than 1,000 employees amid a slump in Fortnite engagement.

Permalink to story:

Epic Games' Disney shooter is going "AI first," whether developers like it or not

 

[texasrattler]

So what? Its Epics decision. They can do what they feel is best for their game.

AI is here whether anyone likes it or not. Companies are going to use it. Is it going to make a game better or not, doubtful. For that to really be a discussion they game would mostly have to be made by AI and thats not the case here.

 

[MarkHughes]

I am a software developer and we now have a similar directive, So I have been rewriting our system using AI in .net, It is taking some time for me to learn what can and can't be done and to write up a load of markdown files for the AI to look at, I am 4 weeks into this and it's actually going well.

The software I write has to be exact, (Its CAD) So that is adding time, With a game where imperfections can be overlooked I guess it's easier.

 

[Hexic]

I personally don’t believe we’re far enough into the AI development cycle to have a vibe coded and/or AI-built AAA game that doesn’t suck.

But hey, let’s wait for Epic to show us how to not do it once more!

 

[axiomatic13]

Sure, they can build it. But they can't make me buy it.

 

[Kashim]

Nobody should be upset about this. Let Epic do their thing and wait until it blows up in their face. I'm guessing the release of this game will keep getting pushed back over and over. Then it will either get canceled at some point or they release a half baked product that gets review bombed. Take your pick.

 

[ScottSoapbox]

I am a software developer and we now have a similar directive, So I have been rewriting our system using AI in .net, It is taking some time for me to learn what can and can't be done and to write up a load of markdown files for the AI to look at, I am 4 weeks into this and it's actually going well.

The software I write has to be exact, (Its CAD) So that is adding time, With a game where imperfections can be overlooked I guess it's easier.

Rewriting should go well because you (or AI) can test it against the existing code (or output).

 

[MarkHughes]

Rewriting should go well because you (or AI) can test it against the existing code (or output).

Yes, this is the system I came up with, it builds a model and runs legacy code against it, then it builds an identical model and runs the new code and compares. It's exactly how I would do it but it is doing it faster with me guiding it, checking it and answering questions all the way, It's a big job and it's a complex system so I am allowing it the time to work things out. It's also written hundreds of unit tests to make sure it doesn't change the core of the code once we establish it works as we want. I will do a full code review once finished and it will be tested by multiple human testers later on. I wrote the core initially so it had that to work with.

 

[Puiu]

Writing code using AI and writing with only AI are two entirely different things. I can't wait for the game to release in an stupidly unplayable state with bugs that nobody could anticipate or fix

 

[Lounds]

Wouldn't it make more sense to integrate AI into their own engine and build their own LLM that's designed to build games?