Epic Games has reportedly delayed the release of an upcoming shooter game featuring Marvel and Star Wars characters from March to an unspecified date, according to Bloomberg. According to the publication’s sources, Epic is delaying the release because it is shifting to an “AI-first” production model using tools like Anthropic’s Claude.
“No more hand-written code” is something one of the shooter’s directors told staff in an internal email reviewed by Bloomberg alongside instructions that all art for the game will be “generated with full AI workflows.” Two days after Bloomberg published the article, Epic revealed that its new Epic Games Launcher is available for preview and that it was “vibe coded” because “programming is hard.” Notably, Epic is the company behind arguably the world’s biggest live-service game, Fortnite, and the world’s largest game development toolkit, Unreal Engine. “Programming is hard” is a strange thing to read from said company.
“Programming is hard [so] instead of doing that, we vibe coded a new Epic Games Launcher that’s way faster and more responsive than the current one, and has a new look,” a blog post reads.
Epic claims this new launcher launches 46% faster than Steam, its biggest competitor, and that Epic can “restore from system tray to library” 14% faster than Steam. However, users of the new launcher in Preview have seen less-than-stellar results that don’t match Epic’s findings. In this video posted to Bluesky by Aftermath’s Chris Person, the new launcher appears to be laggy, buggy, unresponsive at times, and slow.
Regarding the unannounced Marvel and Star Wars shooter and its reported “AI first” development, Epic Games communications director Jake Jones told Bloomberg, “We’re embracing AI-accelerated development, led by Epic developers who are the visionaries and creative drivers for everything we do.” That said, Epic laid off more than 1,000 employees in March.
Bloomberg says Epic’s behind-the-scenes plans for its “AI first” approach are to have human hands guide the code and art that AI creates.
This Marvel and Star Wars shooter is likely part of Disney’s $1.5 billion investment in Epic, announced in 2024. Beyond Fortnite skins, little has come of this investment so far, though game development timelines are longer than ever.
[Source: Bloomberg]