Epic Games, the publisher behind Fortnite, has pushed back the release of a game made in collaboration with Disney built around Marvel and Star Wars characters, while instructing developers to build the title using an “AI first” production model.
Bloomberg reports that the game, slated for a March release, now has no public timeline. Epic communicated the new date internally but hasn’t disclosed it, according to people familiar with the project who asked not to be identified because they weren’t authorized to speak publicly.
More notable than the delay is how Epic now wants the game built. Developers have been told to rely on AI tools, including Anthropic’s Claude, as the default method of production, with humans overseeing and guiding what the AI generates. One of the game’s directors told staff in an internal message reviewed by Bloomberg that there would be “No more hand-written code.” The same director described the scope of AI’s role in the game’s art, saying it would be “generated with full AI workflows.” People familiar with the project say this marks the first time a major video-game company has attempted to build a title primarily with AI.
The shift builds on a broader push Epic had already made to expand AI use across its divisions. Still, the announcement reportedly caught some of the company’s own developers off guard, stunning several who were on a video call last week when it was delivered. Some joked about asking Claude to fix mistakes the AI itself had introduced. Others said they hoped the directive wasn’t serious, or that Epic would eventually reverse the decision.
Jake Jones, communications director at Epic Games, responded to the report with a statement: “We’re embracing AI-accelerated development, led by Epic developers who are the visionaries and creative drivers for everything we do.”
The Marvel and Star Wars shooter is the first title under a multi-game partnership between Epic and Disney. The companies struck the arrangement after Disney invested $1.5 billion in Epic in 2024 in exchange for an equity stake in the privately held company.
Progress on the Disney game has lagged behind initial expectations, people familiar with the project said, partly because Epic underestimated how much staffing and time the game would require. The delay also comes against the backdrop of broader cost pressures at Epic. In March, the company announced it was cutting 1,000 jobs, citing slower sales of Fortnite among the reasons.
The decision to lean heavily on generative AI lands in an industry still divided over the technology. A survey conducted earlier this year found that more than a third of game developers already use AI as part of their jobs. The same survey found that more than half of developers believe AI technology is bad for the industry. Generative AI’s growing presence in video games has drawn criticism from developers and gamers alike, with some players arguing that AI-generated content tends to be lower in quality.
AI’s impact on the future of the economy is changing the political landscape. Breitbart News social media director Wynton Hall has written his New York Times bestseller Code Red: The Left, the Right, China, and the Race to Control AI to serve as the definitive guide on how the MAGA movement can create positions on AI that benefit humanity without handing control of our nation to the leftists of Silicon Valley or allowing the Chinese to take over the world.
Read more at Bloomberg here.
Lucas Nolan is a reporter for Breitbart News covering issues of AI, free speech, and online censorship.