Epic Games is moving to an AI-first development model for its collaboration with Disney, according to a Bloomberg report citing people familiar with the project.
The shift would let AI models write the code and shape the artwork for a shooter that has already been delayed, with reporting describing the change as ending hand-written code and AI-free art on the title.
Epic’s engine business makes the move consequential. Unreal Engine sits underneath a large share of the industry’s games, so tooling decisions made for one project tend to propagate to the studios licensing it.
The studio has been signaling interest in generative tooling for several years and has pushed the position that machine assistance expands what small teams can produce.
Reaction inside the industry is unlikely to be uniform. Art and engineering roles on large projects are the ones the strategy puts pressure on, and the title in question already carries the weight of a delay.
Epic and Disney announced their connected universe effort in 2024, framing it as a shared space rather than a single game.
Whether AI-first production holds up on a project of this size is the open question. Reported plans and shipped titles are different things.
