Epic reportedly orders an AI-first workflow for its delayed Disney game

Epic Games is reportedly moving its delayed Disney shooter toward an AI-first workflow, with a director telling developers to stop writing code by hand. The project features Marvel and Star Wars characters. Bloomberg’s October 12 reporting, described by IGN, puts a sweeping production directive alongside Epic’s public promise that developers remain its creative drivers.

A missed schedule and a production reset

The unannounced crossover shooter had been slated for March, but its release has been pushed back. A replacement date has not been disclosed. Bloomberg attributed the delay to slower-than-expected progress after Epic underestimated the time and resources needed to develop the game.

Staffing was part of that miscalculation. According to The A.V. Club’s account of Bloomberg’s reporting, Epic underestimated how many people it would take to produce the project. The new workflow therefore arrives on a game already struggling with its production requirements, rather than as a disclosed demonstration that AI has shortened development.

The internal instruction reaches code and art

Bloomberg obtained an internal message from one of the project’s directors that said, “No more hand-written code.” The same message reportedly said all art for the project would be “generated with full AI workflows.” Those instructions cover both software and visual production, not simply an optional assistant for developers.

Developers attached to the game were reportedly encouraged to use tools such as Anthropic’s Claude AI assistant, with humans expected to oversee the work. That distinction is important: the reported instruction changes how material is generated, but it does not describe a production process operating without people.

The A.V. Club places the announcement to employees in the previous week. Bloomberg reported that many developers were “stunned” by the shift. Their reaction concerns a directive reaching the core work of building the game—not merely the availability of another tool. Epic’s public response uses a less prescriptive description of the change.

We’re embracing AI-accelerated development, led by Epic developers who are the visionaries and creative drivers for everything we do.

Jake Jones, Epic communications director, speaking to Bloomberg

Sweeney’s case is faster iteration, not fewer people

CEO Tim Sweeney also publicly acknowledged a major change. Shortly before the reporting appeared, he posted on X that Epic had a “huge pivot underway” and was moving developers around to retool for “maximum AI acceleration.” His posts describe the company’s rationale for reorganizing work around the technology.

Sweeney said the aim was not to do the same work with fewer people. Instead, he said Epic wanted everyone to build more and better material, with benefits extending to teams using Unreal. In a follow-up, he described the goal as surviving the AI revolution and emerging able to make better code and content faster.

His most concrete promised benefit was a shorter path from an idea to playtesting—trying a game to see how it works. Sweeney argued that many recent big-budget game failures came from systems spending too much of development without being playable. That is his explanation of why acceleration could improve gameplay, not a measured result from the Disney project.