According to reports from Bloomberg and Rock Paper Shotgun, Epic Games has implemented a comprehensive shift toward artificial intelligence-driven development for its unannounced Disney shooter featuring Marvel and Star Wars characters. The company has delayed the project indefinitely and instructed developers to cease writing code by hand, instead directing tools such as Anthropic's Claude for all development work. As per Rock Paper Shotgun, the mandate goes beyond experimentation, with developers being ordered to make heavy use of Anthropic's Claude and similar AI assistants, with hand-written code reportedly being phased out in favour of machine-generated alternatives. A game director informed staff that there would be 'no more hand-written code' as part of this strategic pivot.
As reported by Bloomberg, Epic Games CEO Tim Sweeney described the move as a 'huge pivot' toward AI acceleration, emphasizing that the goal is to help staff build more and better games, not to shrink teams. The company made this transition months after laying off more than 1,000 workers, roughly 20% of its staff. Sweeney believes faster idea-to-playtest cycles could prevent many recent flops among big-budget AAA games, with current speedups ranging from 20% in technical engine work to 5x in web development. According to Rock Paper Shotgun, the project was allegedly pencilled in for a March release but has now been delayed indefinitely, with the reasoning behind this delay raising eyebrows in the industry.
According to Bloomberg, Sweeney expects significant improvements in development efficiency, predicting that almost no area will sit below 3x its January 2026 efficiency by next year. Looking further ahead, he anticipates that connecting and mashing up different games will become the next evolution, noting that enthusiasts already experiment with this approach. However, he stressed that scaling software remains the hardest task, even for AI, and emphasized that stable shared engines are essential for this transformation. As per Rock Paper Shotgun, the timing is notable as the games industry continues to grapple with layoffs and studio closures, while tensions over AI have already sparked labour action, including voice actors' strikes over unregulated AI use.
As reported by Bloomberg, the Epic Games AI shift drew instant pushback amid rising AI job cuts, with one critic accusing Sweeney of failing to read the room. In response, Sweeney argued that much of the industry simply wants it to be 2016 again. Regarding potential public offerings, Sweeney called Epic's goal more modest, stating the company wants to survive the AI revolution and help other developers do the same. The move comes as Anthropic pushes cheaper Claude coding models while rivals such as Meta's Muse Code tool compete for market share. According to Rock Paper Shotgun, if a major publisher like Epic succeeds with a fully AI-first production model, it could set a precedent that reshapes how big-budget games are made — and who makes them.
