Epic reportedly delays its Marvel–Star Wars shooter and goes 'AI first'; Sweeney confirms a 'huge pivot'

Epic Games has reportedly pushed back its first game with Disney and told the team building it to stop writing code by hand. Bloomberg reported on October 12 that the unannounced shooter, featuring Marvel and Star Wars characters, has been delayed from a March target, with no new date, and that developers have been ordered onto an “AI first” production model.

Two parts of that story are on the record. The delay isn’t.

What Epic confirms, and what it doesn’t

Epic’s statement to Bloomberg, quoted identically by GamesIndustry.biz, VGC and Eurogamer: “We’re embracing AI-accelerated development, led by Epic developers who are the visionaries and creative drivers for everything we do.”

CEO Tim Sweeney went further on X on October 12 at 15:00 ART: “We have a huge pivot underway here at Epic, moving developers around to retool for maximum AI acceleration. 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.”

Replying to critics on X, Sweeney said “much of the room wants it to be 2016, but it’s not,” BBC Newsbeat reported on October 13. The BBC said it approached Epic about the AI push and the reported delay; it printed no reply.

Both confirm the AI push. Neither mentions the Disney game, the delay or the March date. Those rest on Bloomberg’s reporting alone. Disney did not immediately respond to Bloomberg.

What Bloomberg reports

According to Bloomberg’s Jason Schreier, as relayed by the outlets above:

• Developers were told on a video call last week that the game would move to an “AI first” model using tools including Anthropic’s Claude, with humans overseeing the output. Some staff were “stunned.”
• A game director wrote in an internal message: “No more hand-written code,” and all art would be “generated with full AI workflows.” That wording comes from Bloomberg’s report, not from Epic on the record.
• Development was behind schedule partly because Epic misjudged how many people and how much time the project needed.

The game itself is unannounced: no title, no platforms. Eurogamer reads the old target as March 2027.

The context makes the bet bigger. Disney invested $1.5 billion in Epic and took an equity stake in 2024, and this shooter was meant to be the partnership’s first game, per GamesIndustry.biz. Epic cut more than 1,000 jobs in March 2026.

What to watch: whether Epic or Disney ever confirms a new window, and whether the “AI first” order stays on one project or becomes, as Sweeney’s post suggests, how Epic works across the board.