Epic has indefinitely delayed a Marvel- and Star Wars-themed shooter it is building with Walt Disney Company, ordering the development team to abandon hand-written code and shift to an "AI first" production model, Bloomberg reported, citing people familiar with the project1,2.
The directive means human developers will manage and guide code and art assets generated by AI models, including Anthropic's Claude, according to internal Epic employee messages viewed by Bloomberg. Internal communications stated there would be "no more hand-written code" and that art assets would be "generated with full AI workflows".
The project is part of a $1.5 billion collaboration between Epic and Disney first announced in early 2024. The shooter had been slated for a March 2027 release but has now been delayed indefinitely amid the AI-related restructuring and what Bloomberg described as understaffed, slower-than-expected development.
"We're embracing AI-accelerated development, led by Epic developers who are the visionaries and creative drivers for everything we do," an Epic spokesperson said in a statement.
Epic CEO Tim Sweeney posted on social media shortly after the Bloomberg story was published: "We have a huge pivot underway here at Epic, moving developers around to retool for maximum AI acceleration".
The mandate goes beyond a tooling upgrade. Bloomberg's sources described a significant pivot in internal development at the Unreal Engine maker, with AI models set to write all the code and guide all the artwork for the shooter. ANALYSIS Framing the change as "no more hand-written code" rather than "AI-assisted coding" places Epic's directive at the far end of the spectrum among major game studios' adoption of generative AI in production pipelines.
The delay and restructuring were reported by Bloomberg's Jason Schreier3.