Epic Games reportedly delays Star Wars and Marvel shooter, as the Fortnite maker embraces "AI-accelerated development"

Epic Games has reportedly turned to gen-AI to finish up development on a shooter that crosses over Star Wars and Marvel, which has been internally delayed.

The short version

• That's according to a Bloomberg report from journalist Jason Schreier, citing anonymous sources familiar with the unannounced game.
• Epic's in-development project - a collaboration with Disney - is said to have hit a speed bump, and the Fortnite maker is apparently telling its developers to embrace more gen-AI tools for the rest of the game's production.
• The new shooter purportedly features characters from both the Marvel and Star Wars series, and the company expected to have it out the door in March 2027.

What happened

Now that the crossover project has slipped, Epic reportedly told its staff to adopt an "AI first" production pipeline and finish the game with tech such as Anthropic's Claude. In an internal message seen by Bloomberg, one game director told developers there would be "no more hand-written code" and art work should be "generated with full AI workflows" - much to the surprise of many workers.

Why it matters

"We're embracing AI-accelerated development, led by Epic developers who are the visionaries and creative drivers for everything we do," Epic's communications director, Jake Jones, said in a statement to Bloomberg.

Summary by Nerd News Network. Read the full article at Eurogamer via the links above and below.