'Our humble goal is to survive the AI revolution' says Epic Games CEO, as its Star Wars and Marvel crossover pivots to 'AI first' development

An unannounced Star Wars and Marvel shooter in the works at Epic Games has been delayed, and its creators instructed to take an "AI first" approach to development. Staff were advised of the pivot last week, according to a Bloomberg report, with the project delayed indefinitely from its (unannounced) March 2027 release.

That "AI first" approach seems pretty comprehensive: the instructions per Bloomberg are to "implement an 'AI first' production model using tools such as Anthropic's Claude". Art will be "generated with full AI workflows", according to the same set of instructions.

Shortly after Bloomberg's report was published, Epic Games CEO Tim Sweeney took to X to share his own thoughts:

• On AI use at Epic Games in general: "We have a huge pivot underway here at Epic, moving developers around to retool for maximum AI acceleration," he said. "The aim isn't to do the same stuff with fewer people, but to enable everyone here to build MORE and BETTER stuff, and to bring the benefits to all teams using Unreal."
• On Epic 'not reading the room' when it comes to consumer attitudes towards generative AI: "Much of the room wants it to be 2016 again, but it's not. Our job, as the provider of tools and technology to much of the industry, is to design for the present that is and the future that will soon be. Personally I'm optimistic about it and see it as empowering for creators."
• On whether Epic will "accelerate an IPO": "Our more modest aim is to survive the AI revolution, help other developers do the same, and come out on the other end making better code and content faster."
• On potential improvements to development time offered by AI: "Right now it's highly variable, from 20% in some areas (like the most technical areas of UE [Unreal Engine] dev) to 5x for other areas (like web dev). By this time next year I expect very little will be less than 3x of January 2026 efficiency."
• On AI's effects on game design in general: "The biggest change will be much faster time from having an idea to playtesting it. This will be great for gameplay, as most of the recent AAA failures can be attributed to game systems going through far too much of their development process without being able to playtest.

Epic Games laid off over 1,000 employees in March, citing the decline in console sales, Epic's ongoing legal disputes with Apple and Google, and difficulty in delivering "consistent Fortnite magic with every season".

Are projects like Epic Games' Star Wars x Marvel crossover inevitable? Will we just have to cope?

Let's be honest: a Marvel and Star Wars crossover shooter made by Epic Games, predominantly utilising generative AI and AI workflows, will be a pretty fascinating experiment to behold. It's such a rich intersection of exhaustingly ubiquitous pop culture touchstones that there's every possibility its AI origins will be less detectable than they might otherwise be.

Because AI slop already mostly looks like Fortnite, Star Wars and Marvel. Add Pixar (which Fortnite looks like), and you basically have slop Mount Rushmore. This is the abyss staring back into the abyss.

Sweeney's quote about audiences wishing they were still in 2016 is telling. The AI industry loves to frame uptake of the technology as an inevitability that detractors / luddites will just need to cope with, or at least, they do when they're not loudly worrying that the technology might kill us.

Still, terrible things that no one likes do have a way of bleeding inescapably into our everyday lives. Tech companies own platforms best equipped to make us tolerate things we innately abhor. People hated Facebook's rollout of "likes"—now most of us "like" things with our mouths firmly closed. People hated it when social media feeds stopped being feeds, so that, for example, weird videos about putting various objects through meat grinders are now mainstream. The transformation from "way to catch up with friends" into "ruinously addictive habit" wasn't appreciated, but it's the norm now anyway.

In other words, the tech industry knows that it doesn't matter whether you like it or not: you'll get what you're given.