Epic Games was, unsurprisingly, one of the first to board the AI hype train, but even we didn’t think it’d stray quite this far from the righteous path. Bloomberg’s Jason Schreier recently got a look at the goings-on inside Epic and paints an ugly picture. Development has reportedly been delayed internally on an untitled Disney game, with employees instructed to adopt more AI tools, with one director apparently stating: “no more hand-written code”.
It’s a bold strategy, Cotton. Let’s see if it pays off for ’em
The full quote is somehow even more alarming:
“Developers on the game, a shooter featuring characters from the Marvel and Star Wars franchises, were instructed to implement an “AI first” production model using tools such as Anthropic’s Claude. Humans will then manage and guide that work. “No more hand-written code,” one of the game’s directors told staff in an internal message reviewed by Bloomberg,” writes Schreier.
The game was initially slated to release sometime in March 2027. No new date has been determined internally. To make matters worse, the game’s director added that the shooter’s art would all be “generated with full AI workflows.” We have to wonder exactly who Epic is developing this game for, other than to appease higher-ups.
It’s an especially odd decision to focus all your AI tools on a game supposedly featuring well-known Marvel and Star Wars characters (what is this game?). Their looks are already so ingrained into the cultural zeitgeist that throwing together some concept art and a character model is (probably) easier than starting from scratch. Fans will have certain expectations, and the stink of AI development is certainly not going to help in the long run.
Schreier continued, saying that even before this directive, Epic had been “pushing hard” to use AI… everywhere. Many employees, it seems, were not on board with the idea when it was conveyed. Some developers hoped that the instruction was a joke. Others wondered whether they should query Claude on mistakes it had created.
“We’re embracing AI-accelerated development, led by Epic developers who are the visionaries and creative drivers for everything we do,” said Jake Jones, communications director at Epic Games, in a statement to Bloomberg News.
There’s no telling whether this unannounced shooter will ever see the light of day. Considering Disney’s hefty $1.5 billion investment in the developer and publisher, we’re betting it will. Whether it sells well is another matter.
