Abstract:
American game developer Epic Games is promoting a major shift in the game development process. According to reports, the company has required a Disney cooperative shooting game that has not been officially announced to adopt an artificial intelligence-centered development model, using AI tools such as Anthropic's Claude to write code and generate game art content through a complete AI workflow. Human developers are mainly responsible for guiding, managing and reviewing the results generated by AI.
This adjustment means that Epic is trying to promote generative artificial intelligence from an auxiliary tool to the main production method for large-scale game projects. Different from the traditional model in the past where programmers manually wrote most of the code and artists produced game assets one by one, the new model hopes to let AI take on more actual production work, and then the development team will integrate, correct and optimize the generated results.
According to Bloomberg, this game is a shooting game developed by Epic in partnership with The Walt Disney Company. It is expected to integrate characters and related content from the Marvel and "Star Wars" series. The project was originally planned to be launched in March 2027, but it has been postponed indefinitely and a new release date has not yet been announced.
It is reported that the project development progress is lagging behind expectations, and Epic's previous estimates of the number of developers required and the project development cycle were also insufficient. Against this background, the company decided to adjust its development methods, hoping to use AI to improve production efficiency and change the original workflow.
A project leader told the development team in an internal message that code will no longer be written manually in the future, and game art will also be generated through a complete AI workflow. These statements reflect that the intensity of this adjustment goes far beyond AI-assisted programming in the general sense, but an attempt to integrate artificial intelligence into multiple core aspects of game development.
Epic spokesman Jake Jones later stated that the company is adopting an AI-accelerated development model, but the entire process will still be led by Epic developers, who remain the core drivers of game creativity and development direction. According to the company, the role of artificial intelligence is to help developers realize their ideas faster, rather than to replace humans' central role in game production.
Epic CEO Tim Sweeney also confirmed on social platforms that the company is undergoing large-scale strategic adjustments and reorganizing developers to more fully utilize artificial intelligence technology. He said that the goal is not to have fewer employees complete the same work, but to enable everyone to create more and better products, while extending the development capabilities brought by AI to other development teams using Unreal Engine.
However, this strategic shift caused quite a shock within the company. The report pointed out that some developers involved in the project were surprised by the new development requirements and raised questions about the quality control and actual workflow of AI-generated content. For example, if there is a bug in the code written by the AI, how much time will the developer need to spend checking and fixing it? If the art resources generated by AI do not conform to the overall style of the game, how should they be adjusted? These problems may affect the actual efficiency of the new model.
From a technical perspective, AI-generated code does not mean that the code can be directly put into the production environment. Large-scale games involve complex physics systems, character behaviors, network synchronization, graphics rendering and game logic, and there are a large number of dependencies between various modules. Even if AI can quickly generate implementation code for a single function, developers still need to check its correctness, performance, and compatibility with existing systems.
Game art also faces similar problems. Generative AI can quickly create character concept drawings, scene materials and other visual content, but large-scale commercial games need to maintain a unified artistic style and ensure consistency between characters, animations, materials and scenes. The generated assets must also meet the technical requirements of the game engine and must be optimized to run stably in the actual game.
Therefore, the speed of AI-generated content is not necessarily equivalent to the increase in the development speed of the entire project. If the development team needs to spend a lot of time screening, modifying and integrating AI output, some of the production time saved may be offset by subsequent reviews and rework. Especially in projects involving mature intellectual property rights such as Marvel and "Star Wars", the character image, world view and visual performance all have high requirements, and any content that does not meet the established standards may need to be remade.
This also explains why Epic’s adjustment has received close attention from the gaming industry. If AI can take on most of the code and art production work, the development process of large-scale games may undergo fundamental changes; but if the quality of the generated content is not stable enough, or manual review still requires a lot of resources, then whether the AI-first model can truly shorten the development cycle and reduce costs remains to be verified by actual projects.
Epic’s AI strategy did not appear suddenly. Over the past few years, Sweeney has been bullish on the impact of generative artificial intelligence on game development. He has said that in the future, AI may allow developers to create games with a large number of characters, complex interactions, and vast worlds, without having to write a lot of fixed logic for each interaction as in the past.
Swinney also believes that with the advancement of artificial intelligence technology, small development teams will also have the opportunity to create larger-scale and more interactive games. For Epic, this trend not only affects the company's own game projects, but may also change the way Unreal Engine developers work.
As the developer of Unreal Engine, Epic has extensive influence in the gaming industry. If the company can establish a mature AI development process and integrate related technologies into Unreal Engine, other game studios may adopt a similar approach. Therefore, this adjustment of Disney cooperation projects, in addition to affecting the development progress of individual games, may also become an important attempt for Epic to test a new generation of game production system.
However, while Epic is promoting AI development, it also faces realistic doubts from employees and the game industry. In March this year, the company announced the layoff of more than 1,000 employees, citing factors such as declining user engagement in “Fortnite” and company expenses exceeding revenue as reasons for the adjustment. The news of large-scale layoffs and now a comprehensive push for AI development have made the outside world more concerned about whether artificial intelligence will help existing employees become more efficient or ultimately reduce the manpower required for game development.
Swinney previously denied that the layoffs in March were caused by AI replacing employees, and emphasized that the company needs to restore financial stability through cost cutting. He once again stated this time that the purpose of the AI strategy is not to allow fewer people to complete the same work, but to improve the output and quality of the development team. However, the company has not yet detailed how this strategic adjustment will affect the job allocation, work content and future recruitment plans of each team.
The application of generative AI in the game industry has always been accompanied by controversy. Some developers believe that AI can speed up prototyping, code writing and material generation, and reduce duplication of work; other developers are worried that over-reliance on AI may affect the uniqueness of game ideas and increase the workload of review, while also causing issues such as copyright ownership, training data sources and employment stability.
Previously, when Epic and Disney tried to introduce the AI-driven Darth Vader character in "Fortnite", there was also a problem with the character generating inappropriate dialogue, and the development team subsequently corrected it through updates. This incident shows that even if AI functions are limited to specific scenarios, unpredictable problems may still occur in the generated results, requiring additional testing, supervision, and error correction mechanisms.
For this unannounced shooting game, the success of AI-first development ultimately depends on the quality of the finished product, the development cycle and player feedback. Artificial intelligence can generate code and art content, but whether a game is fun also involves level design, combat pacing, character creation, narrative structure, and a large number of interrelated design decisions. Whether these links can be effectively improved through AI still has no clear answer.
What is even more noteworthy is that the project was originally planned to be launched in March 2027, but has now been postponed indefinitely while the development process is being adjusted. This means that Epic is not simply adding AI tools to a project that is already progressing as planned, but is trying to find new solutions by changing the production model when development progress is lagging behind.
Currently, Epic and Disney have not announced a new release schedule, nor have they detailed what proportion of AI-generated content will account for the final game. What can be confirmed at this stage is that Epic is accelerating the promotion of AI applications within the company, and this cooperative shooting game involving Marvel and "Star Wars" characters may become an important experiment for it to explore the AI-first development model.
If this model can significantly improve development efficiency while ensuring game quality, large game studios may re-divide the division of labor between programmers, artists and AI tools in the future. But if the cost of reviewing, repairing, and integrating AI-generated content exceeds expectations, the productivity improvements brought by AI may be far less significant than imagined. Whether Epic's adjustment is ultimately successful will become an important case in observing how generative artificial intelligence changes the development process of large-scale games.
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