Epic Games delays Disney game and tells developers to go "AI first"

GamesIndustry.biz reports Epic Games has delayed its upcoming Disney collaboration, a shooter built around Marvel and Star Wars characters, and is shifting the project to an “AI first” production model. The game had been targeting March, but no replacement date has been set.

People familiar with the project say developers were instructed to build with AI tools including Anthropic’s Claude, with humans supervising the results. In an internal message seen by Bloomberg, one director reportedly told staff, “No more hand-written code,” and said the game’s art would be produced through “full AI workflows.”

That’s a notable escalation even by current industry standards. Epic has already been encouraging AI use across its divisions, but Bloomberg says no other major games company has tried to make a game mostly with AI. For teams watching the space, the practical questions are obvious: how much review overhead remains, where quality control sits, and whether AI is being used to accelerate iteration or replace core production tasks.

The timing also matters. Disney invested $1.5 billion in Epic in 2024 and took an equity stake, and the two companies previously framed this shooter as the first of multiple joint games. Epic had already cut 1,000 jobs in March amid slowing Fortnite engagement, and sources say the Disney project had fallen behind partly because staffing and schedule needs were underestimated.